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The Efficiency of Collective Bargaining in Public School

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  • Daniel S. Hosken

    (Crest)

  • David Margolis

    (Crest)

Abstract

This paper develops a bargaining model of wage and employment determination for the public sector. The solution to the model generates structural wage and employment equations that are estimated using data from New York State teacher-school district collective bargaining agreements. An advantage of this approach is that the major collective bargaining models (monopoly nion, right to manage, efficient contracting, and inefficient contracting) are nested in the structural equations based on flexible functional forms and these models can be empirically tested as restrictions on estimated model parameters. The empirical results suggest that the allocation of resources generated by ollective bargaining in New York State public schools is, by and large, not Pareto efficient. Furthermore, it is possible to estimate separate measures of union bargaining power over wages and employment. Empirically, it appears that union bargaining power over wages is around 0.53, while bargaining power over employment is around 0.71. In addition, the paper demonstrates the importance of controlling for the nature of the collective agreement when measuring the level of public services that flow to a community in the presence of a unionized public sector work force.
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Suggested Citation

  • Daniel S. Hosken & David Margolis, 1997. "The Efficiency of Collective Bargaining in Public School," Working Papers 97-55, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    • Handle: RePEc:crs:wpaper:97-55
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    3. Amigues, Jean-Pierre & Favard, Pascal & Gaudet, Gerard & Moreaux, Michel, 1998. "On the Optimal Order of Natural Resource Use When the Capacity of the Inexhaustible Substitute Is Limited," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 153-170, May.
    4. Touhami, A. & Martens, A., 1996. "Macroemesures in Computable General Equilibrium Models: a Probabilistic Treatment with an Application to Morocco," Cahiers de recherche 9621, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J50 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - General
    • J51 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Trade Unions: Objectives, Structure, and Effects
    • J52 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Dispute Resolution: Strikes, Arbitration, and Mediation
    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General

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