This paper develops a model of firm location where communities differ by exogenous endowments of a factor of production. Firms choose to locate based on local subsidies to production. Community and firm optimal strategies are then examined. Through the introduction of information asymmetries about the communities' endowments, equilibrium bidding strategies for communities are found. The results show that auction institutions used by firms may in fact be signaling on the part of communities. These results also indicate that community bids reveal information, and restrictions on this bidding may do more harm than good.

There are two striking aspects of the recovery from the Great Depression in the United States: the recovery was very weak and real wages in several sectors rose significantly above trend. These data contrast sharply with neoclassical theory, which predicts a strong recovery with low real wages. We evaluate whether New Deal cartelization policies designed to limit competition among firms and increase labor bargaining power can account for the persistence of the Depression. We develop a model of the intraindustry bargaining process between labor and firms that occurred with these policies, and embed that model within a multi-sector dynamic general equilibrium model. We find that New Deal cartelization policies are an important factor in accounting for the post-1933 Depression. We also find that the key depressing element of New Deal policies was not collusion per se, but rather the link between paying high wages and collusion.