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Macroeconomic effects of public-sector unions

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  • Vasilev, Aleksandar

Abstract

Motivated by the highly-unionized public sectors, the high public shares in total employment, and the public-sector wage premia observed in Europe, this paper examines the importance of public-sector unions for macroeconomic theory. The model generates cyclical behavior in hours and wages that is consistent with data behavior in an economy with highly-unionized public sector, namely Germany during the period 1970-2007. The union model is an improvement over a model with exogenous public employment. In addition, endogenously-determined public wage and hours add to the distortionary effect of contractionary tax reforms by generating greater tax rate changes, thus producing higher welfare losses.

Suggested Citation

  • Vasilev, Aleksandar, 2015. "Macroeconomic effects of public-sector unions," EconStor Preprints 144529, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:esprep:144529
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    Cited by:

    1. Schreiner, Lena & Madlener, Reinhard, 2022. "Investing in power grid infrastructure as a flexibility option: A DSGE assessment for Germany," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    2. Vasilev, Aleksandar, 2016. "Aggregation with sequential non-convex public- and private-sector labor suply decisions," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 0(2(14), Wi).
    3. Vasilev, Aleksandar & Gesheva, Nadezhda, 2017. "Revisiting the Invisible Hand Hypothesis: A Comparative Study between Bulgaria and Germany," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 45-77.
    4. Vasilev, Aleksandar & Manolova, Hristina, 2019. "Wage Dynamics and Bulgaria: Co-movement and Causality," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 17(1), pages 91-127.
    5. Vasilev, Aleksandar, 2019. "Taxation and welfare: measuring the effect of Bulgaria’s 2007-08 corporate-personal income tax reforms," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue forthcomi.
    6. Aleksandar Vasilev, 2020. "Are labor unions important for business cycle fluctuations? Lessons from Bulgaria," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 10(1), pages 143-161, March.
    7. Aleksandar Vasilev, 2017. "On the Cost of Opportunistic Behavior in the Public Sector: A General-Equilibrium Approach," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 19(2), pages 565-582, April.
    8. Vasilev, Aleksandar, 2017. "Business Cycle Accounting: Bulgaria after the introduction of the currency board arrangement (1999-2014)," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 14(2), pages 197-219.
    9. Vasilev, Aleksandar, 2018. "Is consumption-Laffer curve hump-shaped? The VAT evasion channel," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 45(3), pages 598-609.
    10. Aleksandar Vasilev, 2015. "Insurance-Markets Equilibrium with Double Indivisible Labor Supply," Czech Economic Review, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, vol. 9(2), pages 091-103, December.
    11. Aleksandar Vasilev, 2020. "A Real-business-cycle Model with a Stochastic Capital Share: Lessons for Bulgaria (1999–2018)," Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 14(1), pages 107-121, February.
    12. Vasilev, Aleksandar, 2016. "Is consumption-Laffer curve hump-shaped? The role of VAT evasion," EconStor Preprints 147001, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    public sector labor unions; fiscal policy; public wages; public employment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • J51 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Trade Unions: Objectives, Structure, and Effects

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