This paper employs a game-theoretic framework and a comparative historical analysis to study the impact of the Great Depression on corporate welfarism,' i.e., employers' voluntary provisions of non-wage benefits, greater employment security, and employee representation to their blue-collar...

The Great Recession and its aftermath saw the worst relative performance of young firms in at least 35 years. More broadly, as we show, young-firm activity shares move strongly with local economic conditions and local house price growth. In this light, we assess the effects of housing prices and...

We use Norwegian administrative data and applications for emergency government support to simulate magnitude and distribution of business revenue shock due to the Covid-19 pandemic. We rely on it to analyze the impact of business support policies available in Norway and the United States by...

There are many possible ways of reforming the Government-Sponsored Enterprises that insure mortgages against default, including a purely public option, complete privatization or a hybrid model with private firms and public catastrophic insurance. If the government is sufficiently capable and...

This paper considers the likely impact that European Union (EU) will have on the labor compact. It is argued that, despite increased economic integration in Europe, countries will still be able to maintain distinct labor practices if they are willing to bear the cost of those practices. The...

This study analyzes the impact of major industrial relations variables on productivity within a plant that assembles large commercial aircraft. The analysis combines the deep firm- specific knowledge of management and labor typical of the best of traditional industrial relations with formal...

This paper examines the optimality of several seniority provisions which are common to U.S. union contracts. The paper focuses on the attempts by the initial union members to maximize their return from organizing the union. An overlapping generations model is used in the analysis. Seniority wage...

Asymmetries in labour relations can have important effects on imperfectively competitive rivalries between firms. Such asymmetries are particularly striking in cross-country comparisons and are therefore of greatest interest in international markets. Using a simple duopoly model, we focus on two...

This paper presents a decomposition of the decline in union density into structural and within sector components using CPS data for private sector workers. We find that 58 to 68 percent of the decline in private sector unionization between 1973 and 1981 can be accounted for by structural changes...

For many reasons a group of workers may have sufficient bargaining power to claim for themselves some share of any monopoly surplus earned by an enterprise and (in the short run) a share of the return on fixed assets. This paper explores the effect of the threat of collective action on wages and...