Tuna Dökmeci

Tuna Dökmeci, PhD candidate in Economics at the European University Institute

I am a PhD candidate in Economics at the European University Institute (EUI). I work on labour economics, with a focus on wage bargaining and firm competition. My secondary field is industrial policy.

I am on the 2026–2027 academic job market. My Job Market Paper studies how worker bargaining power varies with labour market tightness.

My supervisors are Russell Cooper and Giacomo Calzolari.

Feel free to contact me at tuna.dokmeci@eui.eu.

CV

Research

Job Market Paper

Bargaining Power and Market Tightness: Theory and Evidence

Worker bargaining power is central to wage determination and varies substantially across countries, across worker types, and over time. Yet, standard models treat it as an exogenous fixed parameter, leaving the observed variation in bargaining power largely unexplained. This paper endogenises bargaining power and shows, in theory and in the data, that it is an equilibrium object shaped by labour market tightness. I develop a non-cooperative alternating-offers model in which workers and firms continue to search while negotiating. In equilibrium, a negotiation's breakdown risk depends on market conditions, so the worker's surplus share rises with tightness. Using an instrumental variables approach and French matched employer–employee data, I test this prediction by estimating how the pass-through of firm productivity to wages varies with local labour market tightness. The results show that a one-standard-deviation increase in tightness raises productivity pass-through to wages by 16%. I further study how this relationship varies across firms of different sizes and productivity levels.

Presented at: SAEe 2026, Fourth Women in Central Banking Workshop, 41st AIEL Conference, EALE 2026

Draft coming soon

Working Papers

Effects of State Aid on Firm Performance: Evidence from 22 EU Countries

with Andrea Brasili, Annamaria Tueske, Jochen Schanz

Despite renewed interest in industrial policy, empirical evidence on state aid effectiveness remains limited. We examine the short-run effects of large state aid awards across 22 EU Member States, linking firm-level data from Orbis with publicly disclosed awards granted in 2017–2018. Using a generalized difference-in-differences design, we estimate effects on investment, employment, and productivity. State aid significantly increases capital investment, particularly among SMEs and firms receiving regional development aid, which are groups more likely to face financial constraints. Effects are strongest in Central and Eastern Europe. However, we find no corresponding improvements in productivity or employment within two years. These findings suggest that while state aid effectively stimulates investment in the short run, productivity gains may take longer to materialize, and efficiency gains could be obtained from better targeting and EU-wide coordination.

Presented at (* if by co-author): OeNB*, DG Grow Research Conference on the Single Market, EUI, Joint Research Centre (JRC) Sevilla

Draft SSRN

Work in Progress

Bargaining Power in Frictional Markets: A Microfoundation for Generalised Nash Bargaining

This paper develops a non-cooperative theory of bargaining power in a symmetric frictional market with buyers and sellers. Agents bargain through alternating offers while continuing to search for alternative trading partners. When a new partner arrives, they endogenously decide whether to abandon an ongoing negotiation. These decisions generate an endogenous risk of breakdown that depends on market tightness. As market conditions become more favourable to one side of the market, its equilibrium surplus share increases. The model therefore provides a microfoundation for bargaining weights that vary systematically with market conditions rather than being fixed exogenous parameters.

Presented at: EAYE 2026

Work in progress

The Ripple Effect: Children's Job Insecurity and Parents' Labour and Consumption Choices

with Elena Lazzaro

This paper studies the effect of young adults' job insecurity on the consumption and labour supply decisions of their parents. Using data from the Italian Survey on Household Income and Wealth (SHIW), we causally estimate this effect by exploiting a labour market reform ("Fornero reform") that substantially reduced firing costs for workers in firms with more than 15 employees. According to our findings, working parents of treated adult children reduced their consumption by €2,453 per year on average. This effect is driven by the drop in durable consumption, which yearly decreases by €1,600. Even if we do not find any substantial and significant effect on the intensive and extensive margins of labour, we observe that the impact on consumption is stronger for retired parents who are constrained in their ability to adjust their labour supply and who also reduce their non-durable expenditures.

Work in progress

Labour Demand and Firing Costs under Imperfect Competition: A Non-Monotonic Relationship

In this paper, I analyse the effects of firing costs on job creation and employment in an oligopolistic setting. I show that quantity competition and strategic interaction can generate a positive relationship between firing costs and hiring. The mechanism relies on commitment: when firms face costly lay-offs, they can credibly commit to higher output, discouraging rivals from expanding. However, this effect is not monotonic. At low levels, firing costs limit commitment and deter hiring; at higher levels, they enable firms to lead the market and expand employment. The model also reveals strategic spillovers, as firms respond not only to their own constraints but also to their competitors'. These results challenge the standard view that firing costs necessarily suppress job creation and highlight the importance of market structure in shaping labour market outcomes.

Work in progress

Pre-PhD Work

Policy Work

Teaching

At the EUI, I have served as teaching assistant, mentor, and tutor across several graduate courses in economics.

Graduate Macroeconomics III — Search & Match

Teaching Assistant for Edouard Challe.

MRes Programme Mentoring & Tutoring

Tutor in microeconomics and macroeconomics for Master of Research students.