This paper analyzes the links between labour market institutions and skill premiums in the UK, controlling for other explanatory variables such as market conditions, international trade and skill-biased technology. We find that the trade union decline in unskilled workers can explain more than...

The 1947 Taft-Hartley amendments to the National Labor Relations Act (1935) authorized a state's right to prohibit unions from requiring a worker to pay dues, even when the worker is covered by a collective bargaining agreement. Within a short time of the amendment's passage, twelve (12) states...

In this paper we develop a theory of union bargaining power based on firm-specific skills acquired by the insider work-force. We show that unions increase the bargaining power of insiders only in states of the world in which the firm would like to retain insiders but not hire outsiders. Union...

The paper surveys unemployment policies for advanced market economies and evaluates them by examining the predictions of the underlying macroeconomic theories. The basic idea is that, for the most part, different unemployment policy prescriptions rest on different macroeconomic theories, and our...

This paper uses the British Household Panel Survey to investigate when seniority is rewarded by automatic incremental scales. Scales are seen as an alternative to individual merit pay. They are likely to be used when individual productivity is hard to measure, when firms provide all workers with...

We study the wage growth of job stayers over the business cycle, and show that wage adjustments within a job spell display significant history dependence. This is at odds with the spot market model, which implies that the wage growth of a worker within a job spell depends solely on the change in...

Recent research in macroeconomics emphasizes the role of wage rigidity in accounting for the volatility of unemployment fluctuations. We use worker-level data from the CPS to measure the sensitivity of wages of newly hired workers to changes in aggregate labor market conditions. The wage of new...

Eines der am häufigsten genannten Vorschläge in der Diskussion um die Deregulierung des Arbeitsmarktes ist die Lockerung des Kündigungsschutzgesetzes (KSchG). Für kleine Unternehmen stellt, so die Hypothese, der Schwellenwert im Kündigungs schutzgesetz ein Einstellungshindernis dar, da sie...

One solution to the euro crisis as a debt crisis can be found in stimulating economic growth. The Troika has proposed measures to deregulate labor markets in Southern EU countries: a longer working week, relaxation of job dismissal laws, raising the age of retirement. A longer working week for...

The paper examines an early case of creative accounting, and how, during British industrialization, accounting was enlisted by the manufacturers’ interest to resist demands, led by the ‘Ten hours’ movement, for limiting the working day. In contrast to much of the prior literature, which...