IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecm/feam04/554.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Wage Bargaining under the National Labor Relations Act

Author

Listed:
  • Quan Wen
  • Jesse A. Schwartz

Abstract

Sections 8(a)(3) and 8(a)(5) of the National Labor Relations Act prevent a firm from unilaterally increasing the wage it pays the union during the negotiation of a new wage contract. To understand this regulation, we study a counterfactual negotiation model where the firm can temporarily increase compensation to its employees during wage negotiations. Comparing this to the case where the firm does not have this option, we show that the firm may strategically increase the union's temporary wage to upset the union's incentive to strike, decreasing the union's bargaining power, and shrinking the set of permanent wage contracts that may arise in a perfect equilibrium. As the union becomes more patient, the best possible equilibrium contract to the union gets worse. In the limit, the uniqueness and hence the full efficiency of the perfect equilibrium are restored. We also demonstrate that allowing the union to refuse the firm's temporary compensation does not affect the set of perfect equilibrium outcomes

Suggested Citation

  • Quan Wen & Jesse A. Schwartz, 2004. "Wage Bargaining under the National Labor Relations Act," Econometric Society 2004 Far Eastern Meetings 554, Econometric Society.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecm:feam04:554
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repec.org/esFEAM04/up.20574.1079713410.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rubinstein, Ariel, 1982. "Perfect Equilibrium in a Bargaining Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(1), pages 97-109, January.
    2. Fernandez, Raquel & Glazer, Jacob, 1991. "Striking for a Bargain between Two Completely Informed Agents," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(1), pages 240-252, March.
    3. Slantchev, Branislav L., 2003. "The Power to Hurt: Costly Conflict with Completely Informed States," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(1), pages 123-133, February.
    4. Muthoo,Abhinay, 1999. "Bargaining Theory with Applications," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521576475.
    5. Card, David, 1990. "Strikes and Bargaining: A Survey of the Recent Empirical Literature," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 410-415, May.
    6. Ausubel, Lawrence M. & Cramton, Peter & Deneckere, Raymond J., 2002. "Bargaining with incomplete information," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications, in: R.J. Aumann & S. Hart (ed.), Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 50, pages 1897-1945, Elsevier.
    7. Vroman, Susan B, 1989. "A Longitudinal Analysis of Strike Activity in U.S. Manufacturing: 1957-1984," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 816-826, September.
    8. Bolt, Wilko, 1995. "Striking for a Bargain between Two Completely Informed Agents: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1344-1347, December.
    9. David Card, 1990. "Strikes and Wages: A Test of an Asymmetric Information Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(3), pages 625-659.
    10. Kennan, John & Wilson, Robert, 1993. "Bargaining with Private Information," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 31(1), pages 45-104, March.
    11. Martin J. Osborne & Ariel Rubinstein, 2005. "Bargaining and Markets," Levine's Bibliography 666156000000000515, UCLA Department of Economics.
    12. Busch, Lutz-Alexander & Wen, Quan, 1995. "Perfect Equilibria in Negotiation Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(3), pages 545-565, May.
    13. Cramton, Peter & Tracy, Joseph, 1998. "The Use of Replacement Workers in Union Contract Negotiations: The U.S. Experience, 1980-1989," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(4), pages 667-701, October.
    14. Houba, Harold, 1997. "The policy bargaining model," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 1-27, August.
    15. Shaked, Avner & Sutton, John, 1984. "Involuntary Unemployment as a Perfect Equilibrium in a Bargaining Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(6), pages 1351-1364, November.
    16. Gunderson, Morley & Kervin, John & Reid, Frank, 1986. "Logit Estimates of Strike Incidence from Canadian Contract Data," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(2), pages 257-276, April.
    17. Haller, Hans & Holden, Steinar, 1990. "A letter to the editor on wage bargaining," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 232-236, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fengjiao Chen & Chiu Yu Ko & Duozhe Li, 2018. "On the role of outside options in wage renegotiation," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(4), pages 792-803, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. William H. Greene & Ana P. Martins, 2002. "Striking Features of the Labor Market," EERI Research Paper Series EERI RP 2002/08, Economics and Econometrics Research Institute (EERI), Brussels.
    2. William H. Greene & Ana P. Martins, 2013. "Striking Features of the Labor Market: Theory," Journal of Economics and Econometrics, Economics and Econometrics Society, vol. 56(2), pages 1-24.
    3. Harold Houba & Quan Wen, 2006. "Perfect Equilibria in a Negotiation Model with Different Time Preferences," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 06-028/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    4. Houba, Harold & Wen, Quan, 2011. "Extreme equilibria in the negotiation model with different time preferences," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 507-516.
    5. Harold Houba & Quan Wen, 2007. "Extreme Equilibria in a General Negotiation Model," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 07-070/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    6. Vicente Calabuig Alcantara, 1997. "Ineficiencias en las negociaciones entre dos agentes completamente informados," Working Papers. Serie EC 1997-03, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    7. Kyung nok Chun & Zachary Schaller & Stergios Skaperdas, 2020. "Why Are There Strikes?," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 130(6), pages 929-956.
    8. Harold Houba & Quan Wen, 2008. "On striking for a bargain between two completely informed agents," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 37(3), pages 509-519, December.
    9. Harold Houba & Quan Wen, 2006. "On The Power to Hurt: Costly Conflict with Completely Informed States," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 3(3), pages 1-6.
    10. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:3:y:2006:i:3:p:1-6 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. William H. Greene & Ana P. Martins, 2013. "Striking Features of the Labor Market: Empirical Evidence," Journal of Economics and Econometrics, Economics and Econometrics Society, vol. 56(2), pages 25-53.
    12. Vicente Calabuig, 1999. "Ineficiencias de las negociaciones entre dos agentes completamente informados: un panorama," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 23(3), pages 303-329, September.
    13. Wait, A., 2001. "Delays in Bargaining With Incompelete Contracts," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 809, The University of Melbourne.
    14. Agnieszka Rusinowska & Ahmet Ozkardas, 2015. "On equilibrium payoffs in wage bargaining with discount rates varying in time," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 3(2), pages 181-199, October.
    15. Furusawa, Taiji & Wen, Quan, 2002. "Disagreement points in trade negotiations," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 133-150, June.
    16. Sebastian Schweighofer-Kodritsch, 2015. "Time Preferences and Bargaining," STICERD - Theoretical Economics Paper Series /2015/568, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    17. Busch, Lutz-Alexander & Wen, Quan, 2001. "Negotiation games with unobservable mixed disagreement actions," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 563-579, July.
    18. Mumcu, Ayşe, 1999. "Firm-Specific Skills, Wage Bargaining, and Efficiency," MPRA Paper 1913, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Fengjiao Chen & Chiu Yu Ko & Duozhe Li, 2018. "On the role of outside options in wage renegotiation," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(4), pages 792-803, October.
    20. Harold Houba, 2008. "Computing Alternating Offers And Water Prices In Bilateral River Basin Management," International Game Theory Review (IGTR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 10(03), pages 257-278.
    21. Taiji Furusawa & Quan Wen, 2001. "Unique Inneficient Perfect Equilibrium in a Stochastic Model of Bargaining with Complete Information," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 0121, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bargaining; Negotiation; Good Faith Bargaining;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ecm:feam04:554. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christopher F. Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/essssea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.