This paper describes a simple model of labor disputes based on the hypothesis that unions use strikes to infer the level of profitability of the firm. The implications of the model are then tested using data on wage outcomes, strike probabilities, and strike durations for a large sample of...

It is argued in many circles that a structural change occurred in U.S. collective bargaining in the 1980s. We investigate the extent to which the hiring of replacement workers can account for this change. For a sample of over 300 major strikes since 1980, we estimate the likelihood of...

Efficiency wage models have been criticized because worker malfeasance can be prevented in a pareto efficient manner by requiring workers to post a bond which they lose if they are caught cheating. However, since it is costly to monitor workers and costless to demand a larger bond, firms should...

This paper presents a wage bargaining model in which the employer and employee are each uncertain about the other's reservation wage. Under specified circumstances, the model's equilibrium is shown to involve unilateral wage setting and inefficient labor turnover. In addition, aggregate demand...

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...

This paper represents the first empirical application of a model of trade union behavior that has been discussed in the literature for over thirty years. The wages and employment o typographers are examined to see whether they can be usefully characterized as the outcome of a process by which...

Much recent thought has been devoted to the macroeconomic importance of the existence of wage contracts. Still, some puzzling features of the most conspicuous form of wage bargaining, that done formally by employers and labor unions, deserve further theoretical attention. Among these important...

Several studies find that there is little sex gap in wages at labor market entry, and that the sex gap in wages emerges (and grows) with time in the labor market. This evidence is consistent with (i) there is little or no sex discrimination in wages at labor market entry, and (ii) the emergence...

This paper examines the behavior of dual jobholders to test a simple model of wage bargaining versus wage posting in which workers facing hours constraints in their primary job take a second, flexible-hours job for additional income. When a secondary job offers a sufficiently high wage, a worker...

Some workers bargain with prospective employers before accepting a job. Others face a posted wage as a take-it-or-leave-it opportunity. Theories of wage formation point to substantial differences in labor-market equilibrium between bargained and posted wages. We surveyed a representative sample...