Strikes, just as other types of conflict, used to be difficult to explain from an economic perspective. Initially, it was thought that they were a result of mistakes or irrationality. Then, during the 1980s an explosion of research brought asymmetric information to prominence as a significant...

In a framework of a unionised oligopoly, this paper reconsiders the impact of the bargaining structure on union wages. In particular, two dimensions along which centralisation may occur, namely the professional and firm line, are integrated into one modelling framework. It will be shown that,...

We consider a two-country model of wage determination with private information in unionized imperfectly competitive industries. We investigate the effects of separated product markets opening up for competition as well as of further market integration on the negotiated wage and the maximum delay...

This paper analyzes a strategic bargaining game where the firm may or may not be able to sell out of its inventory of finished goods during a strike. Firms and the union are both risk neutral and have the same discount rate. It is shown that the wage equilibrium corresponds to the axiomatic Nash...

We study bilateral bargaining problems with interested third parties, the stakeholders that enjoy benefits upon a bilateral agreement. We explore the strategic implications of this third party involvement. Our main finding is that the potential willingness of the stakeholder to make...

Job-satisfaction as a component of workers' utility has been strangely neglected, with work usually regarded as reducing utility and the benefits of leisure. This is contradicted by many empirical studies showing that unemployment is a major cause of unhappiness, even when income is controlled...

In a unionised labour market, a substitution of a payroll for an income tax will not alter employment if tax obligations are fulfilled. However, if workers or firms can evade taxes this irrelevance result might no longer apply. This will especially be the case if the fine for tax evasion depends...

We analyze union behavior in a model with membership dynamics and compare the labor market outcomes to static union models. Based on empirical findings we modify standard models and show that the well-known result that static models overstate distortions caused by unions only holds in the...

This paper investigates the interaction between establishment-level codetermination and industry-level collective bargaining in Germany. Based on a simple bargaining model we derive our main hypothesis: In establishments covered by collective bargaining agreements works councils are more likely...