We analyse how different labour market institutions--employment protection versus ‘flexicurity’--affect technology adoption in unionised firms. We consider trade unions’ incentives to oppose or endorse labour-saving technology and firms’ incentives to invest in such technology. Increased...

With the defeat of the federal Labor Government and the consequent end of the Accord, it has almost become the received wisdom to attribute to the Accord the blame for the decline in union membership and union density during the 1980s and the 1990s. The decline in union density has arisen not...

This paper traces the process whereby the apprenticeship system came to be regulated by industrial tribunals during the period 1900 to 1930. It describes how the regulation emerged, the motives that underpinned it, and the wider political debate about the apprenticeship system at the time. It...

This paper uses survey data to look at the union membership by analysing decisions of employees to join and leave (exit) unions when they are in jobs where unions are available and there is freedom of choice on union membership.

This paper investigates nature of apathy in relation to unions, the causes of it and the influence it exerts on union membership. Union apathy was found to have quite different correlates to political apathy. Wheras political apathy is higher among blue collar workers, union apathy was lower...

In this Paper we analyse changes in the conditional distributions of male earnings in Spain during the 1980s. We use a large new database of records on individual workers and firms from the Spanish Social Security system for the period 1980-87. The data set is an unbalanced panel subject to...

This paper analyzes the macroeconomic consequences of the establishment of a monetary union in the presence of unionized labour markets. It is shown that the effects of the formation of a monetary union depend on several labour market features, such as the degree of centralization of wage...

This paper provides a comprehensive survey of seven aspects of rising inequality that are usually discussed separately: changes in labor’s share of income; inequality at the bottom of the income distribution, including labor mobility; skill-biased technical change; inequality among high incomes;...

Sweden is home to a remarkably large number of prosperous multinationals. We argue that this is partly the result of industrial policies that have been biased in favour of large firms, and partly the result of an institutional setting where regulations and controls have facilitated investment...

This Paper aims at answering the question: how does a typically 'European' bargaining system – with collective bargaining, extension mechanisms and national minimum wage – coexist with low unemployment rate and high wage flexibility? A unique dataset on workers, firms and collective...