This paper quantifies the economic well-being of different age groups and the extent of their reliance on incomes from public and private sources. The aim is to establish how social benefits, and the taxes needed to finance them, affect income levels and disparities across different age groups....

This paper draws attention to an increase in the size of the union membership wage premiumin the UK public sector relative to the private sector. We find the public sector membershipwage premium is approximately double that in the private sector controlling for a full range ofindividual, job and...

During the 1930s and 1940s, collective bargaining emerged as the workplace governancenorm in much of the U.S. industrial sector. Following its peak in the 1950s, union density inthe U.S. private sector fell steadily, to only 7.4 percent in 2006. Governance shifted from aformalized union norm to...

This paper explores the relationship between economic performance and US unionism, focusing first on what we do and do not know based on empirical research handicapped by limited data on establishment and firm level collective bargaining coverage. Evidence on the relationship of unions with...

This study argues that the promotion of union goals could have positive, negative, or neutral effects on risk adjusted return performance. Moreover, the union's ability and incentive to use pension assets to promote union goals will vary with the design of the pension. Using panel data on over...

In Germany, there is no trade union membership wage premium, while the membership fee amounts to 1% of the gross wage. Therefore, prima facie, there are strong incentives to free-ride on the benefits of trade unionism. We establish empirical evidence for a private gain from trade union...

This paper considers the role of gender in the promotion process and the impact of promotion on wages and wage growth, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79). Its focus is upon mid-career promotion and wages, thereby complementing extant studies of the NLSY that...

Using a common methodology, the effects of unions on wage levels and wage dispersion are estimated for two neighboring countries, Bolivia and Chile, and for the U.S. The analysis shows that unions have broadly similar effects on the wage distribution within these three economies. The findings...

Public sector unionism grew rapidly during the late 1960s and early 1970s following the passage of state collective bargaining laws. During the last thirty years, public sector membership has grown at roughly the same rate as the overall workforce. This paper provides a descriptive overview of...

The size distribution of trade unions in the United States and changes in this distribution are documented. Because the most profound changes are taking place among very large unions, these are subject to special analysis by invoking Pareto's distribution. This represents a new application of...