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Trade Unions, Wage Bargaining Coordination, and Foreign Direct Investment
Author(s) -
Radulescu Roxana,
Robson Martin
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
labour
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.403
H-Index - 34
eISSN - 1467-9914
pISSN - 1121-7081
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9914.2008.00430.x
Subject(s) - foreign direct investment , wage , economics , attractiveness , labour economics , incentive , wage bargaining , international economics , investment (military) , market economy , macroeconomics , psychology , politics , political science , psychoanalysis , law
Conventional wisdom is that a high trade union bargaining strength and a system of coordinated wage bargaining reduce the attractiveness of an economy as a location for foreign direct investment, although there is limited evidence for this. The paper takes panel data for 19 OECD economies to examine the relationship between trade union bargaining strength, bargaining coordi nation, and a range of incentives for inward foreign direct investment. It finds a strong negative effect of trade union density on inward foreign direct investment, which is dependent on the degree of wage bargaining coordination. A high degree of coordination weakens the deterrent effect of high union density, which is consistent with the notion that under certain circumstances a coordinated increase in wages can increase profits of the multinationals by hurting domestic firms.