Using individual-level data on male non-managerial workers from the 1996 British New Earnings Survey, we estimate overtime hours and average premium pay equations. Among other issues, four broad questions are of central importance. (a) What are the impacts of straight-time pay and hours on...

A firm's decision to employ agency workers may be perceived as a replace- ment of directly employed workers or as way to curb union power, which trade unions would oppose. Alternatively, trade unions may encourage the (tem- porary) employment of agency workers in a firm, if they manage to...

This paper addresses the design of the machinery of collective bargaining from the perspective of the needs of microeconomic and macroeconomic flexibility. In the former context, greater attention is given over to enterprise flexibility than external adjustment. In the latter context, close...

We construct a political equilibrium in which employers and labour unions bargain over labour contracts, wage-earners and profit-earners lobby the government for taxation and labour market regulation, and labour market legislation must be accepted by the majority of voters. We show that the...