The fraction of works councillors belonging to a trade union in Germany is much higher than union density among employees. If works councils represent the face of unions, union membership of employees should be related positively to the existence of works councils and their proximity to unions....

Status considerations with respect to consumption give rise to negative externalities because individuals do not take into account that their decisions affect the relative consumption position of others. Further, status concerns create incentives for excessive labour supply in competitive...

The paper investigates whether unionisation has a spillover effect on wellbeing by comparing non-members in union and non-union workplaces. To this end, it adapts the social custom model of trade unions and goes on to conduct empirical analyses using linked employer-employee data and alternative...

Unions make differences to employee satisfaction that correspond to their effects on individual economic advantage. Panel data reveal how changes in economic circumstance and changes in job satisfaction are linked to changes in union coverage. When individuals move into a union covered job they...

This paper looks at the financial resources of trades unions in the UK, both updating previous work and attempting to understand the management of first and second order collective action problems. First order problems refer to the problems of initiating collective action and second order...

In an open-shop model of trade union membership with heterogeneity in risk attitudes, a worker's relative risk aversion can affect the decision to join a trade union. Furthermore, a shift in risk attitudes can alter collective bargaining outcomes. Using German panel data (GSOEP) and three novel...

Across Europe, there are many differing opinions on whether workplace employee representation should be encouraged or discouraged. Yet there is very little evidence on the variations in workplace employee representation across Europe or the reasons for this. We use a workplace survey covering 27...

In a unionised labour market, a substitution of a payroll for an income tax will not alter employment if tax obligations are fulfilled. However, if workers or firms can evade taxes this irrelevance result might no longer apply. This will especially be the case if the fine for tax evasion depends...

An interesting aspect of British research on unions based on the Workplace Industrial/Employment Relations Surveys has been the apparent shift in union impact on establishment performance in the decade of the 1990s compared with the 1980s - and the recent scramble to explain the phenomenon. In...