Premium
What can we Learn from Bargaining Models about Union Power? The Decline in Union Power in G ermany, 1992–2009
Author(s) -
Hirsch Boris,
Schnabel Claus
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
the manchester school
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.361
H-Index - 42
eISSN - 1467-9957
pISSN - 1463-6786
DOI - 10.1111/manc.12028
Subject(s) - economics , unemployment , wage , collective bargaining , power (physics) , union density , wage bargaining , labour economics , bargaining power , fell , macroeconomics , microeconomics , physics , quantum mechanics , paleontology , biology
Building on the right‐to‐manage model of collective bargaining, this paper tries to infer union power from the observed results in wage setting. It derives a time‐varying indicator of union strength taking account of taxation, unemployment benefits, and the labour market situation and confronts this indicator with annual data for G ermany. The results show that union power did not change much from 1992 to 2002 but fell markedly (by about one‐third) from 2002 to 2007 in the aftermath of substantial labour market reforms.