Working Paper: NBER ID: w9973
Authors: David Blanchflower; Alex Bryson
Abstract: We explore the various claims made by Freeman and Medoff (FM) in their famous book What do unions do? about the impact of unions on wages and update them with new and better data. The main findings are as follows. 1) Private sector union wage premium is lower today than it was in the 1970s. 2) The union wage premium is counter-cyclical. 3) There is evidence of a secular decline in the private sector union wage premium. 4) There remains big variation in the premium across workers. 5) There is big variation in industry-level union wage premia. 6) State level union wage premia vary less than occupation and industry level premia. 7) Union workers remain better able than non-union workers to resist employer efforts to reduce wages when market conditions are unfavorable. 8) There has been a decline in the unadjusted wage gap relative to the regression-adjusted wage gap. 9) Public sector wage effects are large and similar to those in the private sector.
Keywords: No keywords provided
JEL Codes: J5
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Time (C41) | Union Wage Premium (J31) |
| Economic Cycles (E32) | Union Wage Effects (J31) |
| Union Membership (J50) | Wage Stability (J31) |
| Worker Demographics (J21) | Union Wage Premium (J31) |
| Industries (L89) | Union Wage Premium (J31) |
| Unadjusted Wage Gap (J31) | Regression-Adjusted Wage Gap (J79) |
| Public Sector Unionization (J45) | Private Sector Wage Effects (J31) |