IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/1226.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Unions, Pensions, and Union Pension Funds

Author

Listed:
  • Richard B. Freeman

Abstract

This paper examines the role of trade unions as determinants of: pension coverage, expenditures by firms for pensions; the provisions of pension plans; and pension fund investments. It also examines the impact of union pensions on the age-earnings profile of union workers. It has four basic findings:(1) Unions greatly increase pension coverage, and alter the determinants of coverage, in ways that go beyond the monopoly wage effects of unionism.(2) Unions alter the provisions of pension plans in ways that benefit senior workers and that equalize pensions among workers.(3) Estimates of the age-earnings profile of union workers are seriously flawed by failure to take account of the union impact on pensions, which generally enhance the earnings of the oldest groups.(4) Union pension funds can and do shun the stocks of nonunion firms without lowering the value of the portfolio. Investments in actual projects which take lower returns are, up to a point, justifiable in terms of the full economic benefit accruing to workers.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard B. Freeman, 1983. "Unions, Pensions, and Union Pension Funds," NBER Working Papers 1226, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:1226
    Note: LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w1226.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nelson, Richard R, 1976. "Political Economy: Some Uses of the Exit-Voice Approach: Discussion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 66(2), pages 389-391, May.
    2. Richard B. Freeman, 1981. "The Effect of Unionism on Fringe Benefits," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 34(4), pages 489-509, July.
    3. Freeman, Richard B, 1976. "Individual Mobility and Union Voice in the Labor Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 66(2), pages 361-368, May.
    4. Hirschman, Albert O, 1976. "Political Economy: Some Uses of the Exit-Voice Approach: Discussion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 66(2), pages 386-389, May.
    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. Lu, Yi & Tao, Zhigang & Wang, Yijiang, 2010. "Union effects on performance and employment relations: Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 202-210, March.
    2. David Weil, 2004. "Individual Rights and Collective Agents. The Role of Old and New Workplace Institutions in the Regulation of Labor Markets," NBER Chapters, in: Emerging Labor Market Institutions for the Twenty-First Century, pages 13-44, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Steven G. Allen & Robert L. Clark, 1987. "Pensions and Firm Performance," NBER Working Papers 2266, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Mohan, Nancy & Zhang, Ting, 2014. "An analysis of risk-taking behavior for public defined benefit pension plans," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 403-419.
    5. Alan L. Gustman & Thomas L. Steinmeier, 1988. "An Analysis Of Pension Benefit Formulas, Pension Wealth And Incentives From Pensions," NBER Working Papers 2535, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Steven G. Allen & Robert L. Clark & Daniel A. Sumner, 1986. "Postretirement Adjustments of Pension Benefits," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 21(1), pages 118-137.
    7. Axel West Pedersen & Jon M Hippe & Anne Skevik Grødem & Ole Beier Sørensen, 2018. "Trade unions and the politics of occupational pensions in Denmark and Norway," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 24(1), pages 109-122, February.
    8. Gustman, A.L. & Mitchell, O.S. & Steinmeier, T.L., 1993. "The Role of Pensions in the Labor Market," Papers 93-07, Cornell - Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies.
    9. Leora Friedberg & Michael Owyang, 2004. "Explaining the Evolution of Pension Structure and Job Tenure," NBER Working Papers 10714, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Andrietti, Vincenzo, 2000. "Occupational pension coverage in the European Union. An empirical analysis," ISER Working Paper Series 2000-14, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    11. Chang Hee Lee & Mingwei Liu, 2011. "Collective Bargaining in Transition: Measuring the Effects of Collective Voice in China," Chapters, in: Susan Hayter (ed.), The Role of Collective Bargaining in the Global Economy, chapter 8, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. Hogler, Raymond L. & Hunt, Herbert III & Wilson, Paula A., 1996. "Accounting standards, health care, and retired American workers: An institutional critique," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 21(5), pages 423-439, July.
    13. Matthew Knepper, 2020. "From the Fringe to the Fore: Labor Unions and Employee Compensation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(1), pages 98-112, March.
    14. Alan L. Gustman & Olivia S. Mitchell, 1990. "Pensions and the U.S. Labor Market," NBER Working Papers 3331, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. David Weil, 2003. "Individual Rights and Collective Agents: The Role of Old and New Workplace Institutions in the Regulation of Labor Markets," NBER Working Papers 9565, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Teresa Ghilarducci & Joelle Saad-Lessler, 2014. "Explaining the Decline in the OfFer Rate of Employer Retirement Plans Between 2001-2012," SCEPA working paper series. 2014-2, Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA), The New School.
    17. An, Heng & Huang, Zhaodan & Zhang, Ting, 2013. "What determines corporate pension fund risk-taking strategy?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 597-613.
    18. Di Gialleonardo, Luca & Marè, Mauro & Motroni, Antonello & Porcelli, Francesco, 2016. "The impact of financial crisis on savings decisions: evidences from Italian pension funds," MPRA Paper 76066, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jul 2016.

    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. Uwe JIRJAHN & Stephen C. SMITH, 2018. "Nonunion Employee Representation: Theory And The German Experience With Mandated Works Councils," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 89(1), pages 201-233, March.
    2. Uwe Jirjahn & Jens Mohrenweiser & Stephen C Smith, 2022. "Works councils and workplace health promotion in Germany," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 43(3), pages 1059-1094, August.
    3. Asma Hyder & Barry Reilly, 2005. "The Public and Private Sector Pay Gap in Pakistan: A Quantile Regression Analysis," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 44(3), pages 271-306.
    4. Richard B. Freeman, 1978. "The Effect of Trade Unionism on Fringe Benefits," NBER Working Papers 0292, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Goldman, Dana P. & Sood, Neeraj & Leibowitz, Arleen, 2005. "The reallocation of compensation in response to health insurance premium increases," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 147-151, August.
    6. Addison, John T. & Teixeira, Paulino, 2019. "Strikes, employee workplace representation, unionism, and industrial relations quality in European establishments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 109-133.
    7. Christopher K. Coombs & Richard Cebula, 2011. "The Impact of Union Corruption on Union Membership," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(1), pages 131-148, January.
    8. Vahabi, Mehrdad, 2005. "Destructive power, enforcement and institutional change," MPRA Paper 13236, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jan 2006.
    9. Freeman, Richard B, 1978. "Job Satisfaction as an Economic Variable," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(2), pages 135-141, May.
    10. Addison, John T. & Teixeira, Paulino & Evers, Katalin & Bellmann, Lutz, 2013. "Collective Bargaining and Innovation in Germany: Cooperative Industrial Relations?," IZA Discussion Papers 7871, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Hutchens, R & Nolen, PJ, 2006. "Will The Real Family-Friendly Employer Please Stand Up: Who Permits Parents To Reduce Working Hours For Purposes of Childcare?," Economics Discussion Papers 2905, University of Essex, Department of Economics.
    12. John W. Budd & Karen Mumford, 2004. "Trade Unions and Family-Friendly Policies in Britain," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 57(2), pages 204-222, January.
    13. Ghaly, Mohamed & Kostakis, Alexandros & Stathopoulos, Konstantinos, 2021. "The (non-) effect of labor unionization on firm risk: Evidence from the options market," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    14. Andrea Garnero & François Rycx & Isabelle Terraz, 2020. "Productivity and Wage Effects of Firm‐Level Collective Agreements: Evidence from Belgian Linked Panel Data," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(4), pages 936-972, December.
    15. Tobias Brändle, 2017. "Flexible collective bargaining agreements: Still a moderating effect on works council behaviour?," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(8), pages 1137-1153, December.
    16. Panos, Georgios & Theodossiou, Ioannis, 2009. "Union Mediation and Adaptation to Reciprocal Loyalty Arrangements," MPRA Paper 15471, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Uwe Jirjahn & Jens Mohrenweiser, 2021. "Works councils and organizational gender policies in Germany," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 59(4), pages 1020-1048, December.
    18. Kandice Kapinos, 2009. "On the Determinants of Defined Benefit Pension Plan Conversions," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 30(2), pages 149-167, June.
    19. Richard B. Freeman & Robert G. Valletta, 1987. "The Effect of Public Sector Labor laws on Collective Bargaining, Wages, and Employment," NBER Working Papers 2284, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Paul Miller & Charles Mulvey, 1992. "Trade Unions, Collective Voice and Fringe Benefits," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 68(2), pages 125-141, June.

    More about this item

    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:nbr:nberwo:1226. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.