We examine the changing relationship between unionization and wage inequality in Canada and the United States. Our study is motivated by profound recent changes in the composition of the unionized workforce. Historically, union jobs were concentrated among low-skilled men in private sector...

This paper contrasts the differing experience of public sector unionism, which has expanded in the United States, and private sector unionism, which has contracted, in the past several decades. It uses the experience of other countries, particularly Canada, to rule out some explanations of the...

A stylized fact in the growing literature on public sector labor markets is that estimates of public sector union wage premia are significantly lower than estimates of private sector union wage premia. In this paper I investigate the hypothesis that this difference may in part be due to the...

Arguments in favor of school choice depend on the idea that competition between schools improves the quality of education. However, we have almost no empirical evidence on whether competition actually affects school quality. In this study, I examine the effects of inter-school competition on...

This paper shows that public provision of private goods may be justified on pure efficiency grounds in an environment where individuals consume both public and private goods. The government's involvement in the provision of private goods provides it with information about individuals' private...

Local governments spend roughly $1.6 trillion per year to provide a variety of public services ranging from police and fire protection to public schools and public transit. However, we know little about public sector's productivity in delivering key services. To understand the productivity both...

Studies of public/private sector wage differentials typically assume that the govenment and union status of a worker are exogenous variables. Recently, some studies have relaxed this assumption slightly by allowing the union status to be endogenous. In this paper, we consider a more general...

This paper examines the structure, behavior and performance of the N95 respirator market in the U.S. before and during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-early 2022). It focuses on the behavior and performance of government and private sector organizations in the allocation of scarce supplies of N95...

The wage structure in the U.S. public sector responded sluggishly to substantial changes in private sector wages during the 1970s and 1980s. Despite a large expansion in the college/high school wage differential during the 1980s in the private sector, the public sector college wage premium...

Over the past 20 years, demand for acute care hospital services has declined more rapidly than has hospital capacity. This paper investigates the extent to which the preponderance of the nonprofit form in this industry might account for this phenomenon. We test whether rates of exit from the...