What are the effects of firm- and sector-level trade unions on unemployment and aggregate output if individuals have rent-sharing motives? To answer this question, we extend a Melitz-type model to unionized labor markets. Because individual rent-sharing motives are only taken into account and...

Trade unions are often argued to cause allocative inefficiencies and to lower welfare. We analyze whether this evaluation is also justified in a Cournot-oligopoly with free but costly entry. If input markets are competitive and output per firm declines with the number of firms (business...

How does an increase in unionization costs, i.e. costs which arise when workers are organized by a union, affect the productivity distribution of active firms, wage inequality and welfare? In this paper, we build a model with costly, endogenous unionization, heterogeneous firms as well as free...

Empirical evidence suggests that high-productivity firms face stronger trade unions than low-productivity firms. Then a policy that puts all unions into a better bargaining position is no longer neutral for firm selection as in models with a uniform bargaining strength across firms. Using a...

Empirical evidence suggests that the bargaining power of trade unions differs across firms and sectors. Standard models of unionization ignore this pattern by assuming a uniform bargaining strength. In this paper, we incorporate union heterogeneity into a Melitz (2003) type model. Union...

We analyze the effects of unionization on the decision of a firm to either produce at home or abroad. We consider a model in which home and foreign workers are perfect substitutes and firms have an informational advantage concerning their productivity. The union offers wage-employment contracts...

Trade unions are typically able to convert their industrial power into political power. We show that, depending on the parameter constellation, stronger trade unions may be welfare-improving in terms of an increase in aggregate employment and output, if they successfully lobby for lower trade...