The Union Membership Wage-Premium Puzzle
Is There a Free Rider Problem
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3581373 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Alison L Booth (0000-0003-2237-5279, University of Essex), Mark L Bryan (0000-0002-5000-8946, University of Essex) |
| Year | 2004 |
| Volume | 57 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 402-421 |
| Publication date | 2004-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Industrial and Labor Relations Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0019-7939 • E-ISSN: 2162-271X |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/001979390405700305 |
| OpenAlex | W3123206892 |
| ISBN | 9793904057003 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 18 |
| References cited | 27 |
Economists have long suggested that labor unions suffer a free rider problem. The argument is that, since union-set wages are available to all workers covered by unions irrespective of their union status, and union membership entails costs, workers will only join if they are coerced or are offered non-wage goods that they value above membership costs. Yet U.S. and British empirical research has found a substantial union membership wage premium among private-sector union-covered workers, implying that there is no free rider problem. The authors of this study hypothesize that these findings arise due to selectivity problems associated with identifying the union membership effect. Their analysis, which uses rich data from a new linked employer-employee survey for Britain and exploits the within-establishment variation in wages as a function of individual union membership status, demonstrates that the apparent wage premium for members is illusory. Hence, a potential free rider problem remains
Economics · Efficiency wage · Excludability · Free rider problem · Incentive · Labour economics · Microeconomics · Order (exchange) · Public good · Trade union · Wage · Firm Innovation and Growth · Labor market dynamics and wage inequality · Labor Movements and Unions
Trade Unions and Family-Friendly Policies in Britain
Union Density Effects on Productivity and Wages
Assessing the Employee Welfare Impact of Right‐To‐Work Laws
Imperfect goods and labor markets, and the union wage gap
Inequality
Explaining Pay Disparities between Top Executives and Nonexecutive Employees
High‐involvement Management Practices, Trade Union Representation and Workplace Performance in Britain
Les délégués syndicaux sont-ils discriminés
Labor union, between group inequality, and individual attitudes toward redistribution
Factors Affecting Union Decline in 18 OECD Countries and their Implications for Labor Movement Reform
The Employment of Temporary Agency Workers in the UK
The Wage Impact of Trade Unions in the UK Public and Private Sectors
Does Membership Payoff for Covered Workers? A Distributional Analysis of the Free Rider Problem
Anticipation, Free-Rider Problems, and Adaptation to Trade Unions
Reframing the Representation Debate
Who Settles for Less? Subjective Dispositions, Objective Circumstances, and Housing Satisfaction
Britain at Work
Estimating Models with Sample Selection Bias
On Least Squares Estimation when the Dependent Variable is Grouped
Unemployment persistence
The Logic of Collective Action
Limited-dependent and qualitative variables in econometrics
Does Union Membership Matter? The Effect of Establishment Union Density on the Union Wage Differential
Union Membership and Wage Bargaining when Membership is not Compulsory
What Did Unions Do in Nineteenth-Century Britain
| Unique citing works | 16 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,82 |
| Citation span | 2004 - 2025 (22) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 17 |