This paper uses a panel of regional data to investigate the impact that the well-documented decline in trade unionism in the UK had on the economic performance of its regions. The analysis employed here departs from the traditional firm-level and cross-sectional analyses and looks at the economy-wide effects of unionism. Our findings provide evidence in line with theory that predicts unions to increase wages and reduce labour demand, leading to higher unemployment, but they also indicate that unionism is positively related to productivity and incomes, although in all cases the effects are non-linear. We conclude that unionism is not necessarily a burden for the economy, so long that the beneficial wage/productivity effects overbalance the negative effects on employment.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by EconWPA in its series Urban/Regional with number
0302006.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Booth, Alison L & Chatterji, Monojit, 1998.
"Unions and Efficient Training,"
Economic Journal,
Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(447), pages 328-43, March.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Did you know? All full texts are decentralized with the publishers, none reside on this server, thus making it possible to offer this service for free to all parties.