This paper indicates that the extent of collective bargaining coverage in an industry may depend on the differences in firms productivity levels within the industry. Less pronounced differences in productivity levels make it easier to design collective wage contracts that are accepted by a wider...

Do unions really impede manufacturers’ output flexibility? If so, in what ways? The authors propose a methodology for quantifying George Stigler's concept of output flexibility and for decomposing the effects of unionization on average cost differences between union and non-union plants. Using...

This study quantifies the impact of process and product innovation on employment growth in Bolivia by using microdata from a survey on innovation conducted in Bolivia in 2016. Following the model of Harrison, Jaumandreu, Mairesse, and Peters (2008) and the adaptations for Latin America of Crespi...

We show that wage setting in the Colombian manufacturing industry is not fundamentally driven by labor productivity in contrast to the standard theoretical prediction. On the contrary, internal institutional arrangements – payroll taxation, the minimum wage or the price wedge between...

Why have the real (consumption) wages of U.S. workers risen since the nineteenth century? Some economists answer that increases in real wages have followed increases in labor productivity over time. In this paper, this hypothesized association is confronted with annual observations of changes in...