How Successful Have Trade Unions Been? A Utility-Based Indicator of Union Well-Being

24 Pages Posted: 27 Aug 2008

See all articles by John H. Pencavel

John H. Pencavel

Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR); IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Abstract

Can conventional economic analysis help in defining and measuring the success of labor unions? In this paper, a general indicator of union welfare is proposed and particular expressions for the wage and employment objectives of unions are rearranged to derive measures of union success or welfare. These indicators combine two measures: union density and the relative union-nonunion wage gap. The indicators are applied to describe the movement of union welfare in the United States over the past eighty years, the differences in union success among groups of U.S. workers, and the variation in union well-being across countries.

Keywords: trade unions, union density, relative wage effect of unionism, union objectives

JEL Classification: J51

Suggested Citation

Pencavel, John H., How Successful Have Trade Unions Been? A Utility-Based Indicator of Union Well-Being. IZA Discussion Paper No. 3660, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1251028 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1251028

John H. Pencavel (Contact Author)

Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) ( email )

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IZA Institute of Labor Economics

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