Holdouts (the continuation of negotiations beyond the contract expiry date) are the most common form of disputes in labor contract negotiations. The authors model holdouts as a delaying tactic employed by unions to obtain information about other bargaining outcomes in their industry. Novel...

When union-firm pairs bargain sequentially, and when unobserved components of firms' abilities to pay are subject to correlated shocks, unions that bargain later in a sequence can acquire valuable information by observing previous bargaining outcomes in their industry. The authors derive the...