The authors analyze establishment-level data from the three Workplace Industrial Relations Surveys of 1980, 1984 and 1990 to document and explain the sharp decline in unionization that occurred in Britain over the 1980s. Between 1980 and 1990 the proportion of British establishments which...

The unionized share of the work force changed markedly in the United Kingdom between the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1970s density rose steadily, making the United Kingdom the most heavily organized large OECD country. In the 1980s, by contrast, density fell by 1.4 percentage points per annum -- a...

Large black-white fertility differences are a key feature of US demography, and are closely related to the broader dynamics of US racial inequality. To better understand the origins and determinants of racial fertility differentials, this paper examines fertility patterns in the period...

The "core right" established in D.C. vs. Heller (2008) is to keep an operable handgun in the home for self-defense purposes. If the Court extends this right to cover state and local jurisdictions, the result is likely to include the elimination of the most stringent existing regulations - such...

While researchers have long held that discrimination cannot endure in an increasingly competitive environment, there has been little work testing this dynamic process. This paper tests the hypothesis (based on Becker 1957) that increased competition resulting from globalization in the 1980s...

This paper examines the available evidence on the causes of black economic advance in order to assess the contribution of federal policy. Over the period 1920-1990, there were only two periods of relative black economic improvement -- during the 1940s and in the decade following the passage of...

Major crises—from terrorist attacks to outbreaks of disease—bring the trade-off between individual civil liberties and national security or well-being into sharp relief. In this paper, we study to what extent individual preferences for protecting rights and civil liberties are elastic to...

Legal rules governing the employer-employee relationship are many and varied. Economic analysis has illuminated both the efficiency and the effects on employee welfare of such rules, as described in this paper. Topics addressed include workplace safety mandates, compensation systems for...

This study investigates the impact of union organization on the wages and labor practices of establishments newly organized in the 1980s using a research design in which establishments are 'paired' with their closest nonunion competitor. There are two major findings. First. unionism had only a...

This paper studies asset pricing and labor market dynamics in a setting in which idiosyncratic risk in human capital is not fully insurable. Firms use long-term contracts to provide insurance to workers, but neither side can fully commit; furthermore, owing to costly and unobservable retention...