IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/1388.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

An Empirical Model of Wage Indexation Provisions in Union Contracts

Author

Listed:
  • David Card

Abstract

Cost of living escalators are an important feature of North American labor contracts. This paper presents a measure of the response of index-linked wage increases to concurrent price increases for a sample of Canadian contracts, and then analyses this response in terms of a simple model of indexation to the aggregate price level. The model highlights the importance of aggregate price movements in conveying information about industry-specific prices. The empirical analysis confirms that industry-specific correlations between input and output prices and the Consumer Price Index are important determinants of the response of wage to prices across index contracts.

Suggested Citation

  • David Card, 1984. "An Empirical Model of Wage Indexation Provisions in Union Contracts," NBER Working Papers 1388, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:1388
    Note: LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w1388.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James J. Heckman, 1976. "The Common Structure of Statistical Models of Truncation, Sample Selection and Limited Dependent Variables and a Simple Estimator for Such Models," NBER Chapters, in: Annals of Economic and Social Measurement, Volume 5, number 4, pages 475-492, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Gray, Jo Anna, 1976. "Wage indexation: A macroeconomic approach," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(2), pages 221-235, April.
    3. Blanchard, Olivier Jean, 1979. "Wage Indexing Rules and the Behavior of the Economy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(4), pages 798-815, August.
    4. Ehrenberg, Ronald G & Danziger, Leif & San, Gee, 1983. "Cost-of-Living Adjustment Clauses in Union Contracts: A Summary of Results," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(3), pages 215-245, July.
    5. Farber, Henry S, 1978. "Individual Preferences and Union Wage Determination: The Case of the United Mine Workers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(5), pages 923-942, October.
    6. MaCurdy, Thomas E & Pencavel, John H, 1986. "Testing between Competing Models of Wage and Employment Determination in Unionized Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(3), pages 3-39, June.
    7. David Card, 1983. "Cost-of-Living Escalators in Major Union Contracts," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 37(1), pages 34-48, October.
    8. Hamermesh, Daniel S, 1995. "Labour Demand and the," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(430), pages 620-634, May.
    9. Brown, James N & Ashenfelter, Orley, 1986. "Testing the Efficiency of Employment Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(3), pages 40-87, June.
    10. Daniel S. Hamermesh, 1976. "Econometric Studies of Labor Demand and Their Application to Policy Analysis," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 11(4), pages 507-525.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Christofides, Louis N. & Peng, Chen, 2006. "Contract duration and indexation in a period of real and nominal uncertainty," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 61-86, February.
    2. Nicholas Lawson, 2011. "Is Collective Bargaining Pareto Efficient? A Survey of the Literature," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 32(3), pages 282-304, September.
    3. Shakhnovich Ruvim & Yudashkina Galina, 2001. "Wage-Setting and Employment Behavior of Enterprises during the Period of Economic Transition," EERC Working Paper Series 01-04e, EERC Research Network, Russia and CIS.
    4. Farber, H.S. & Abowd, J.M., 1990. "Product Market Competition, Union Organizing Activity, And The Employer Resistance," Working papers 551, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    5. Joseph S. Tracy, 1986. "Seniority Rules and the Gains from Union Organization," NBER Working Papers 2039, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Corrado Benassi & Antonello E. Scorcu, 2003. "Indexation Rules, Risk Aversion and Imperfect Information," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 71(3), pages 330-340, June.
    7. repec:eee:labchp:v:2:y:1986:i:c:p:1039-1089 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Drydakis Nick, 2011. "Greek unions' preferences: measuring trends in the field. An exploratory note on the period 2008–2009," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 17(4), pages 563-576, November.
    9. Louis Christofides & Chen Peng, 2006. "Major Provisions of Labour Contracts and their Theoretical Coherence," CESifo Working Paper Series 1700, CESifo.
    10. repec:pri:indrel:dsp01cc08hf62w is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Max H. Bazerman & Henry S. Farber, 1987. "Divergent Expectations as a Cause of Disagreement in Bargaining: Evidence from a Comparison of Arbitration Schemes," Working Papers 1987-1, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    12. Ronald G. Ehrenberg & Leif Danziger & Gee San, 1982. "Cost-of-Living Adjustment Clauses in Union Contracts," NBER Working Papers 0998, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Hanes, Christopher, 2010. "The rise and fall of the sliding scale, or why wages are no longer indexed to product prices," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 49-67, January.
    14. Peter J. Luke & Mark E. Schaffer, 1999. "Wage Determination in Russia: An Econometric Investigation," CERT Discussion Papers 9908, Centre for Economic Reform and Transformation, Heriot Watt University.
    15. Giuseppe Diana & Pierre‐Guillaume Méon, 2008. "Monetary Policy in the Presence of Asymmetric Wage Indexation," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 75(1), pages 69-90, July.
    16. Swati Basu & Saul Estrin & Jan Svejnar, 2005. "Employment Determination in Enterprises under Communism and in Transition: Evidence from Central Europe," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 58(3), pages 353-369, April.
    17. Andrews, Martyn & Harrison, Alan, 1998. "Testing for Efficient Contracts in Unionized Labour Markets," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(3), pages 171-200, July.
    18. De Schryder, Selien & Peersman, Gert & Wauters, Joris, 2020. "Wage indexation and the monetary policy regime," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    19. Paul Beaudry & David A. Green & Ben M. Sand, 2018. "In Search of Labor Demand," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(9), pages 2714-2757, September.
    20. John M. Abowd & Francis Kramarz & David N. Margolis, 1999. "High Wage Workers and High Wage Firms," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(2), pages 251-334, March.
    21. Duca, John V. & Vanhoose, David D., 1998. "The Rise of Goods-Market Competition and the Decline in Wage Indexation: A Macroeconomic Approach," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 579-598, July.
    22. John DiNardo & David S. Lee, 2002. "The Impact of Unionization on Establishment Closure: A Regression Discontinuity Analysis of Representation Elections," NBER Working Papers 8993, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    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:1388. 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.