IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_6362.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Call my Rep! How Unions Overcame the Free-Rider Problem

Author

Listed:
  • Richard Murphy

Abstract

This paper proposes an explanation of why union membership has been increasing in some occupations, despite the opportunity to freeride on traditional union benefits. I model membership as legal insurance whose demand increases with the perceived risk of allegations. Using media reports on allegations against teachers as shocks to perceived risk, I find for every five reports occurring in a region, teachers are 2.5 percentage points more likely to be members in the subsequent year. These effects are larger when teachers share characteristics with the news story and explain 45 percent of the growth in teacher union membership since 1992.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Murphy, 2017. "Call my Rep! How Unions Overcame the Free-Rider Problem," CESifo Working Paper Series 6362, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6362
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp6362.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro & Michael Sinkinson, 2011. "The Effect of Newspaper Entry and Exit on Electoral Politics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 2980-3018, December.
    2. Caroline Minter Hoxby, 1996. "How Teachers' Unions Affect Education Production," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(3), pages 671-718.
    3. David Blanchflower & Alex Bryson, 2008. "Union Decline in Britain," CEP Discussion Papers dp0864, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    4. Lamla, Michael J. & Lein, Sarah M., 2014. "The role of media for consumers’ inflation expectation formation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 62-77.
    5. Blanchflower, D. & Crouchley, R. & Estrin, S. & Oswald, A., 1990. "Unemployment And The Demand For Unions," Papers 372, London School of Economics - Centre for Labour Economics.
    6. Dr Alex Bryson & John Forth, 2010. "Trade Union Membership and Influence 1999-2009," National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) Discussion Papers 362, National Institute of Economic and Social Research.
    7. Alex Bryson & John Forth, 2010. "Trade Union Membership and Influence 1999-2009," CEP Discussion Papers dp1003, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    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. Egidio Farina & Colin Green & Duncan McVicar, 2020. "Zero Hours Contracts and Their Growth," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(3), pages 507-531, September.

    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. Larsen, Vegard H. & Thorsrud, Leif Anders & Zhulanova, Julia, 2021. "News-driven inflation expectations and information rigidities," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 507-520.
    2. Richard Murphy, 2020. "Why Unions Survive: Understanding How Unions Overcome the Free-Rider Problem," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 38(4), pages 1141-1188.
    3. Neil Lee & Paul Sissons & Katy Jones, 2016. "The Geography of Wage Inequality in British Cities," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(10), pages 1714-1727, October.
    4. Mirella Damiani & Fabrizio Pompei & Andrea Ricci, 2013. "Wages and Labour Productivity: the role of performance-related pay in Italian firms," Quaderni del Dipartimento di Economia, Finanza e Statistica 124/2013, Università di Perugia, Dipartimento Economia.
    5. Alex Bryson & Richard Freeman & Rafael Gomez & Paul Willman, 2017. "The Twin Track Model of Employee Voice: An Anglo-American Perspective on Union Decline and the Rise of Alternative Forms of Voice," DoQSS Working Papers 17-13, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.
    6. Andolfatto, Dominique & Labbé, Dominique, 2012. "The Future of the French Trade Unions," management revue - Socio-Economic Studies, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 23(4), pages 323-340.
    7. Veliziotis, Michail, 2010. "Trade unions and unpaid overtime in Britain," ISER Working Paper Series 2010-43, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    8. Dan Coffey & Carole Thornley, 2014. "Shock, awe and continuity: Mrs Thatcher's legacy for the public sector," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(3), pages 195-213, May.
    9. Gall, Gregor, 2012. "Unions in Britain: Merely on the Margins or on the Cusp of a Comeback?," management revue - Socio-Economic Studies, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 23(4), pages 323-340.
    10. Mirella Damiani & Fabrizio Pompei & Andrea Ricci, 2016. "Performance related pay, productivity and wages in Italy: a quantile regression approach," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 37(2), pages 344-371, May.
    11. Richard Murphy, 2019. "Why unions: understanding how unions overcome the free-rider problem," CEP Discussion Papers dp1625, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    12. Bernhardt, Lea & Dewenter, Ralf & Thomas, Tobias, 2020. "Measuring partisan media bias in US Newscasts from 2001-2012," Working Paper 183/2020, Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg, revised 15 Nov 2022.
    13. Barrow, Lisa & Rouse, Cecilia Elena, 2004. "Using market valuation to assess public school spending," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 1747-1769, August.
    14. Godefroy, Raphael & Henry, Emeric, 2016. "Voter turnout and fiscal policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 389-406.
    15. Bennani, Hamza, 2018. "Media coverage and ECB policy-making: Evidence from an augmented Taylor rule," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 26-38.
    16. Dewenter, Ralf & Dulleck, Uwe & Thomas, Tobias, 2016. "Does the 4th estate deliver? Towards more direct measure of political media bias," Working Paper 175/2016, Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg.
    17. Sarah Papich, 2024. "Do Democracy Vouchers help democracy?," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 42(1), pages 4-24, January.
    18. Leive, Adam, 2018. "Dying to win? Olympic Gold medals and longevity," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 193-204.
    19. Baker, Michael & Halberstam, Yosh & Kroft, Kory & Mas, Alexandre & Messacar, Derek, 2024. "The impact of unions on wages in the public sector: Evidence from higher education," CLEF Working Paper Series 67, Canadian Labour Economics Forum (CLEF), University of Waterloo.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    unions; teachers; media; insurance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J51 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Trade Unions: Objectives, Structure, and Effects
    • J45 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Public Sector Labor Markets
    • J32 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Nonwage Labor Costs and Benefits; Retirement Plans; Private Pensions

    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:ces:ceswps:_6362. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.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.