We develop a private-information model of union contract negotiations in which disputes signal a firm's willingness to pay. Previous models have assumed that all labor disputes take the form of a strike. Yet a prominent feature of U.S. collective bargaining is the holdout: negotiations often...

Bargaining often occurs between parties with some shared interest. Partnerships, joint ventures, and cross ownership are examples. We extend standard bargaining models to allow for joint ownership. Joint ownership reduces costly bargaining disputes, as bargainers’ interests are more aligned....

Labor disputes are an intriguing feature of the landscape of industrialized economies. Economists have had a long-standing interest in formulating a framework for understanding and analyzing labor disputes. The development of noncooperative bargaining theory provided the tools for a theory of...

In the labor relations area no issue generates as much controversy and division between labor and management as does the legislative ban on replacement workers. In the United States, the issue of a ban on permanent replacement workers has come before Congress four times since 1988, although the...

We study wage bargaining in which the union is uncertain about the firm's willingness to pay and threat payoffs vary over time. Strike payoffs change over time as replacement workers are hired, as strikers find temporary jobs, and as inventories or strike funds run out. We find that bargaining...

It is argued in many circles that a structural change occurred in U.S. collective bargaining in the 1980s. Strike incidence declined, dispute incidence increased, and the composition of disputes shifted away from strikes and toward holdouts. We investigate the extent to which the hiring of...

Using Canadian data on large, private-sector contract negotiations from January 1967 to March 1993, we find that strikes and wages are substantially influenced by labor policy. The data indicate that conciliation policies have largely been ineffective in reducing strike costs. In contrast,...

We present a bargaining model of union contract negotiations, in which the union decides between two threats: the union can strike or continue to work under the expired contract. The model makes predictions about the level of dispute activity and the form the disputes take. Strike incidence...