If individuals join a trade union their utility should increase. Therefore, union members can be expected to exhibit higher job satisfaction than comparable non-members. This expectation is not consistent with empirical findings. The evidence sometimes indicates that union members have lower job...

Subjective well-being (SWB) is generally argued to rise with relative income. However, direct evidence is scarce on whether and how intensively individuals undertake income comparisons, to whom they relate, and what they perceive their relative income to be. In this paper, novel data with direct...

A strike insurance is integrated into a model based on one-sided private information of the firm. It is shown that the strike insurance will increase the dispute level if payments to the insurance are lump-sum or if payments from the insurance are proportional to wages. However, if wages affect...

The fraction of works councillors belonging to a trade union in Germany is much higher than union density among employees. If works councils represent the face of unions, union membership of employees should be related positively to the existence of works councils and their proximity to unions....

Severance pay is a vital part of employment protection legislation (EPL). We investigate the incidence and level of severance pay for dismissed employees. Our theoretical model predicts that not only the law and its interpretation by labour courts but also the costs of a suit have an impact....

If tax obligations are met, the balanced-budget substitution of an ad valorem tax on output for a specific tax not only raises a monopolist's production, but also represents a Pareto improvement. However, if tax avoidance or evasion is feasible and the marginal costs of such actions decline with...