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An Institutional Economic Analysis of Labor Unions
Author(s) -
KAUFMAN BRUCE E.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
industrial relations: a journal of economy and society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.61
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1468-232X
pISSN - 0019-8676
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-232x.2012.00686.x
Subject(s) - coase theorem , economics , commons , subject (documents) , context (archaeology) , positive economics , institutional analysis , institutional theory , neoclassical economics , institutional economics , welfare , economic system , law and economics , public economics , political science , sociology , microeconomics , transaction cost , market economy , law , social science , paleontology , management , library science , computer science , biology
This paper uses institutional economic theory in the line of Commons and Coase to examine the purposes, economic effects, and social welfare consequences of labor unions. Cross‐discipline and cross‐national principles of the institutional paradigm are described, the American and European literatures are briefly juxtaposed, and the subject of unions is placed in a larger paradigm context. Relative to previous studies, this paper presents the most formal and analytically developed application of institutional theory to the subject of unions. A number of new or revisionist implications are developed, as are contrasts with neoclassical‐based models.