IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/hwwirp/2-16.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

They don't get me I'm part of the union: Trade unions in the German parliament

Author

Listed:
  • Berlemann, Michael
  • Zimmermann, Klaus W.

Abstract

This article focuses on the role of unionized members in parliament. Unions have not been successful in increasing their monopoly power during the last decades in the US. Similarly, a recent study for Germany comes to the result that union members in the Bundestag cannot be seen as the parliamentary arm of the trade unions. However, we present contradicting empirical results by showing that the degree of unionization of parliamentary members has a negative impact on economic growth and increases inflation while unemployment remains unaffected. Thus, at least German trade unions do not seem to be as weak at the parliamentary stage as they often claim to be.

Suggested Citation

  • Berlemann, Michael & Zimmermann, Klaus W., 2010. "They don't get me I'm part of the union: Trade unions in the German parliament," HWWI Research Papers 2-16, Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI).
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:hwwirp:2-16
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/48202/1/642930643.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hibbs, Douglas A., 1977. "Political Parties and Macroeconomic Policy," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 71(4), pages 1467-1487, December.
    2. Richard B. Freeman, 2005. "What Do Unions Do?-- The 2004 M-Brane Stringtwister Edition," Journal of Labor Research, Transaction Publishers, vol. 26(4), pages 641-668, November.
    3. repec:bla:econom:v:55:y:1988:i:217:p:1-19 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. John Pencavel, 2005. "Unionism Viewed Internationally," Journal of Labor Research, Transaction Publishers, vol. 26(1), pages 65-97, January.
    5. Eckstein, Zvi & Tsiddon, Daniel, 2004. "Macroeconomic consequences of terror: theory and the case of Israel," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(5), pages 971-1002, July.
    6. Alberto Alesina, 1987. "Macroeconomic Policy in a Two-Party System as a Repeated Game," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(3), pages 651-678.
    7. Nicola‐Maria Riley, 1997. "Determinants of Union Membership: A Review," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 11(2), pages 265-301, June.
    8. Wiji Arulampalam & Alison L. Booth & Mark L. Bryan, 2004. "Training in Europe," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(2-3), pages 346-360, 04/05.
    9. Barry T. Hirsch, 2004. "What Do Unions Do for Economic Performance?," Journal of Labor Research, Transaction Publishers, vol. 25(3), pages 415-456, July.
    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. Blanchflower, David G., 2006. "A Cross-Country Study of Union Membership," IZA Discussion Papers 2016, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Lohmann, Susanne, 1997. "Partisan control of the money supply and decentralized appointment powers," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 225-246, May.
    3. Rodrigo M. S. Moita & Claudio Paiva, 2013. "Political Price Cycles in Regulated Industries: Theory and Evidence," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 94-121, February.
    4. Blomberg, S. Brock & Hess, Gregory D., 2003. "Is the political business cycle for real?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(5-6), pages 1091-1121, May.
    5. Bonomo, Marco Antônio Cesar & Terra, Maria Cristina T., 2005. "Special interests and political business cycles," FGV EPGE Economics Working Papers (Ensaios Economicos da EPGE) 597, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil).
    6. Josef Brechler & Adam Geršl, 2014. "Political legislation cycle in the Czech Republic," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 137-153, June.
    7. Vítor Castro & Rodrigo Martins, 2015. "Budget, expenditures composition and political manipulation: Evidence from Portugal," NIPE Working Papers 4/2015, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.
    8. David Rodriguez-Justicia & Bernd Theilen, 2023. "Ideological alignment, public sector size and tax morale: empirical evidence from OECD economies," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-11, December.
    9. Gerald Carlino & Nicholas Zarra & Robert Inman & Thorsten Drautzburg, 2019. "Fiscal Policy in Monetary Unions: State Partisanship and its Macroeconomic Effects," 2019 Meeting Papers 434, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    10. Juan Carlos Berganza, 1998. "Relationships Between Politicians and Voters Through Elections: A Review Essay," Working Papers wp1998_9809, CEMFI.
    11. François Facchini & Mickaël Melki, 2012. "Political Ideology and Economic Growth in a Democracy: The French Experience, 1871 - 2009," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00662838, HAL.
    12. Vergne, Clémence, 2009. "Democracy, elections and allocation of public expenditures in developing countries," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 63-77, March.
    13. Caleiro, António & Guerreiro, Gertrudes, 2003. "Understanding the Election Results in Portugal. A spatial econometrics point of view," EconStor Preprints 142695, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    14. Kouvavas, Omiros, 2013. "Political Budget Cycles Revisited, the Case for Social Capital," MPRA Paper 57504, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 15 Sep 2013.
    15. Klein, Michael W, 1996. "Timing Is All: Elections and the Duration of United States Business Cycles," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 28(1), pages 84-101, February.
    16. Sell, Friedrich L., 1999. "Die EWWU als Club: Positive und normative Implikationen für den Beitritt mittel- und osteuropäischer Reformstaaten," Working Papers in Economics 1999,4, Bundeswehr University Munich, Economic Research Group.
    17. Arslan Razmi, 2018. "Politics-Driven Exchange Rate Cycles : East Asia vs. Latin America," UMASS Amherst Economics Working Papers 2018-14, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics.
    18. Efthyvoulou, Georgios, 2011. "Political cycles under external economic constraints: Evidence from Cyprus," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 63(6), pages 638-662.
    19. Paola Assael & Felipe Larraín, 1994. "El Ciclo Político-económico: Teoría, Evidencia y Extensión para una Economía Abierta," Latin American Journal of Economics-formerly Cuadernos de Economía, Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile., vol. 31(92), pages 87-114.
    20. Helene Ehrhart, 2013. "Elections and the structure of taxation in developing countries," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 156(1), pages 195-211, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    trade unions; unemployment; growth; inflation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J51 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Trade Unions: Objectives, Structure, and Effects

    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:zbw:hwwirp:2-16. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/hwwiide.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.