TRAINING AND LABOR POACHING IN THE US - A DYNAMICAL MODEL OF COLLECTIVE ACTION

This article presents a dynamical model of collective action which provides a framework for studying whether the American economy may ever spontaneously shift towards a high-training equilibrium in the absence of any institutional intervention. In-firm training has some of the characteristics of a collective good and its production thus raises a problem of coordination, very close to a n-player prisoner's dilemma. We modelize this problem, borrowing from statistical physics and assuming that firms are heterogeneous. We show that, in theory, a high-training equilibrium may eventually emerge, in the long run. However, this proves impossible in the United-States given the values of the parameters for the American economy.