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Title: The Impact of Collective Bargaining: Can the New Facts be Explained by Monopoly Unionism?
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Freeman, Richard B.
Medoff, James L.
The Impact of Collective Bargaining: Can the New Facts be Explained by Monopoly Unionism?
Discussion Paper No. 886, Harvard Institute of Economic Research, Havard University, Cambridge MA, 1982
Cohort(s): Older Men, Young Men
Publisher: Harvard Institute of Economic Research
Keyword(s): Behavior; Collective Bargaining; Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Industrial Sector; Layoffs; Mobility, Job; Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID); Private Sector; Quits; Unions

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

In this paper we focus our attention on the question of whether union-nonunion differences in nonwage outcomes can, in fact, be explained in terms of standard price-theoretic responses to real wage effects, as opposed to the real effect of unionism on economic behavior. We reach three basic conclusions. First, unions and collective bargaining have real economic effects on diverse nonwage variables which cannot be explained either in terms of price-theoretic responses to union wage effects or be attributed to the poor quality of our econometric "experiments." Second, we find that while sensitivity analyses of single-equation results and longitudinal experiments provide valuable checks on cross-sectional findings, multiple-equations approaches produced results which are too sensitive to small changes in models or samples to help resolve the questions of concern. Finally, on the basis of these findings we conclude that the search for an understanding of what unions do requires more than the standard price theoretic "monopoly" model of unionism. New (and/or old) perspectives based on institutional or industrial relations realities, contractarian or property rights theories, or other potential sources of creative views are also needed.
Bibliography Citation
Freeman, Richard B. and James L. Medoff. "The Impact of Collective Bargaining: Can the New Facts be Explained by Monopoly Unionism?" Discussion Paper No. 886, Harvard Institute of Economic Research, Havard University, Cambridge MA, 1982.