This paper challenges the conclusion reached in recent studies that unions reduce profits exclusively in highly concentrated industries. From their review of previous studies and their analysis of 1977 data on 367 Fortune 500 firms, the authors conclude that there is no convincing evidence that...

This paper examines covariates of the occupational age structure and the openness of jobs to older workers. Using a large number of data sets, which together span the years 1983-98, the authors focus on the structure of compensation, job skill requirements, and working hours and conditions as...

Part-time workers receive considerably lower wages than do full-time workers. Using Current Population Survey earnings files for September 1995 through December 2002, the author finds that measurable worker and job characteristics, including occupational skill requirements, account for much of...

This study examines the relationship between unionism and earnings dispersion within U.S. manufacturing and nonmanufacturing industries. The author hypothesizes not only that unionism narrows earnings dispersion, as others have shown, but also that the dispersion in earnings, reflecting the...

This study examines shareholder risk and rates of return in union and nonunion companies in 1973-87. Shareholder risk declined with the extent of union coverage in the 1970s, and returns were lower among highly unionized companies than among other companies during the late 1970s and early 1980s....

This study estimates union effects on workers' compensation indemnity claims in 1977-92, based on individual panel data constructed from the March Current Population Survey. Union members were substantially more likely to receive workers' compensation benefits than were similar nonunion workers,...

This paper presents union membership and contract coverage density figures, based on calculations from Current Population Survey tapes for the years 1983-88, for employed civilian workers classified by demographic and labor market characteristics, industry, occupation, state, and metropolitan...

This note describes the construction and provision of an Internet database providing private and public sector union membership, coverage, and density estimates compiled from the Current Population Survey (CPS). Economy-wide estimates are provided beginning in 1973, estimates by state, detailed...

This study examines the reasons for differences among metropolitan areas in collective bargaining coverage and in union membership. The author employs an economic framework in which equilibrium levels of unionization are viewed as determined by demand and supply forces. The author finds that...

Registered nurses (RNs) employed in hospitals realize a large wage advantage relative to RNs employed elsewhere. Cross-sectional estimates indicate a hospital RN wage advantage of roughly 20%. This paper examines possible sources of the hospital premium, a topic of some interest given the...