From the Fringe to the Fore: Labor Unions and Employee Compensation

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Knepper, Matthew
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_00803
• 发表日期: 2020-03
• 页码: 98-112
• 关键词: regression discontinuity designs; wage inequality; UNITED-STATES; unionization; size; membership; benefits; impacts; MARKET; institutions

摘要

Conventional wisdom suggests that labor unions raise worker wages, while the newer empirical literature finds only negligible earnings effects. I reconcile this apparent contradiction by arguing that collective bargaining targets fringe benefits. Using U.S. firm-level data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) Multinational Enterprise Survey and Compustat, I exploit a regression discontinuity in majority rule union elections to compare changes in employee compensation at firms whose establishment barely won a union election against those that barely lost an election. Following unionization, average employee compensation and employer pension contributions increase, which raises the labor share of compensation.