<P> The term was first introduced by Joan Robinson in her influential book, The Economics of Imperfect Competition, published in 1933 . Robinson credited classics scholar Bertrand Hallward at the University of Cambridge with coining the term . </P> <P> The standard textbook monopsony model of a labor market is a static partial equilibrium model with just one employer who pays the same wage to all the workers . The employer faces an upward - sloping labor supply curve (as generally contrasted with an infinitely elastic labor supply curve), represented by the S blue curve in the diagram on the right . This curve relates the wage paid, w (\ displaystyle w), to the level of employment, L (\ displaystyle L), and is denoted as an increasing function w (L) (\ displaystyle w (L)). Total labor costs are given by w (L) ⋅ L (\ displaystyle w (L) \ cdot L). The firm has a total revenue R (\ displaystyle R), which increases with L (\ displaystyle L). The firm wants to choose L (\ displaystyle L) to maximize profits, P (\ displaystyle P), which are given by: </P> <Dl> <Dd> P (L) = R (L) − w (L) ⋅ L (\ displaystyle P (L) = R (L) - w (L) \ cdot L \, \!). </Dd> </Dl> <Dd> P (L) = R (L) − w (L) ⋅ L (\ displaystyle P (L) = R (L) - w (L) \ cdot L \, \!). </Dd>

A monopsonist is a buyer that controls a market