EN
The concept of efficiency wages explains the cause of the permanent occur¬rence of wages over the equilibrium wage, as a result of rational decisions on the part of employers and employees. This leads to involuntary unemployment. There are seven models describing wages which are distinguished in literature: nutritional model, shirk¬ing model, turnover model, adverse selection model, recruiting model, sociological mod¬els and union threat model. Some of them were criticized whereas the concept of effi¬ciency wages defended its point. There has been also an attempt to undermine the crux of this concept recently. However, the practice of Polish enterprises gives arguments supporting the thesis about efficiency wages application. That is why this concept re¬mains an interesting research area.