This study examines the relationship between unionism and earnings dispersion within U.S. manufacturing and nonmanufacturing industries. The author hypothesizes not only that unionism narrows earnings dispersion, as others have shown, but also that the dispersion in earnings, reflecting the...

This study examines shareholder risk and rates of return in union and nonunion companies in 1973-87. Shareholder risk declined with the extent of union coverage in the 1970s, and returns were lower among highly unionized companies than among other companies during the late 1970s and early 1980s....

This study estimates union effects on workers' compensation indemnity claims in 1977-92, based on individual panel data constructed from the March Current Population Survey. Union members were substantially more likely to receive workers' compensation benefits than were similar nonunion workers,...

This paper presents union membership and contract coverage density figures, based on calculations from Current Population Survey tapes for the years 1983-88, for employed civilian workers classified by demographic and labor market characteristics, industry, occupation, state, and metropolitan...

This note describes the construction and provision of an Internet database providing private and public sector union membership, coverage, and density estimates compiled from the Current Population Survey (CPS). Economy-wide estimates are provided beginning in 1973, estimates by state, detailed...

The law of one wage does not strictly hold, nor should it be expected to hold, in contemporary labor markets. The law of one wage, however, provides a surprisingly good first approximation of the structure of U.S. wages. This generalization is drawn from research on a diverse set of topics: the...

This paper uses as source material twenty-three autobiographical essays by Nobel economists presented since 1984 at Trinity University (San Antonio, Texas) and published in Lives of the Laureates (MIT Press). A goal of the lecture series is to enhance understanding of the link between biography...