I love this piece by Okun because it contains the essence of the implicit contract between a firm and its employees, yet is written in plain English so it should be readily understandable. The underlying macroeconomic question is about "wage stickiness." Why don't wages fall during a slump and rise in a boom? (The do to some extent but not nearly as much standard supply and demand would predict? Okun gives his answer vis-a-vis implicit contracts, which are a very specific type of coinsurance. You might think of them as a certain type of quid pro quo. We won't explicitly discuss this paper in class, but it is a very good paper to read and will give you a sense of how I think about the employment relationship.
On a technical note, if you are on the campus network you should have access to the piece. From home you must use VPN to have access.
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