Trade Union Growth and Decline in Asia

We examine trends in union density and union influence in several Asian countries. Though we find variation in union density, all countries experienced union decline in the 1990s. Asian countries also vary on our new union influence measure. We use a logics of action framework to examine the institutional context surrounding union growth, decline and influence in each country. Based on our examination of how these institutional contexts are changing, and what we know about the strategies of unions, we are not hopeful regarding the near term prospects for reversing union decline.     

Long‐Term Earnings Inequality,Earnings Instability and Temporary Employment in Spain: 1993–2000

This article provides a longitudinal perspective on changes in Spanish male earnings inequality for the period 1993–2000 by decomposing the earnings covariance structure into its permanent and transitory parts. Cross‐sectional earnings inequality of male full‐time employees falls over the second half of the 1990s. Such decline was determined by a decrease in earnings instability and an increase of the permanent earnings component. Given the marked decline in temporary employment over the sample period, we also examine the effect of the type of contract on earnings variance components and find that workers on a fixed‐term contract face, on average, more instability than workers on a permanent contract. This evidence suggests that the decline in temporary employment is responsible for the decreasing earnings instability.     

Why Fewer Workers Join Unions in Europe: A Social Custom Explanation of Membership Trends

Can the recent decline in union density in Europe be attributed to specific economic, social or institutional causes? Can unions influence these causes and reverse decline? Using two data sources — a representative survey of Dutch employees and a data set for European countries between 1950 and 1997 — the author examines the determinants of union decline. The theoretical model is based on a social custom approach to unionization, integrating rational choice and social network theory. The empirical results show improbable small margins of union resurgence, that is, if institutional support for union representation can be maintained or regained within and beyond workplaces.     

The decline of paid overtime working in Britain

The share of paid-for overtime hours within total paid-for hours worked in Britain has declined from 5.4% to 2.0% between 1997 and 2020. We investigate this decline, focussing on its distribution across full-time (f/t) and part-time males and females and across 19 one-digit industries. It is established that f/t males are dominant in the decline both of overtime working and overtime hours. We explore the implications of the decline on the share of overtime pay within total pay as well as on the gender pay gap. We test for economic, structural and cyclical influences on overtime working via a two-part regression model that allows us to differentiate between the incidence of overtime working and weekly overtime hours of overtime employees. We examine how paid-for overtime has varied with collective bargaining coverage, low pay, the 2008 financial crisis, the arrival of Covid-19, job mobility and the public/private sector dichotomy. Combined marginal effects of changes in the incidence of overtime working and weekly overtime hours are also provided. The influence of the decline of collective bargaining in the last two decades on overtime working is highlighted using Blinder–Oaxaca decompositions.     

Strategic Reorientation and Responses to the Asian Financial Crisis: The Case of the Manufacturing Industry in Singapore

Taking the Asian financial crisis as a base model that triggers decline among manufacturing firms in Singapore, this paper identified two main strategies taken: offensive strategic reorientation and defensive strategic shift. We hypothesized that firms that adopt the offensive strategic reorientation strategy attributed decline to controllable factors, have a higher level of slack, and are bigger in size. On the other hand, firms that adopt defensive strategic shift attributed decline to uncontrollable factors, are under greater severity of decline, have a lower level of slack and are smaller in size. We found significant relationships for the defensive strategic shift strategy.     

Union Effects on Earnings Dispersion in Australia, 1986–1994

In Australia a large decline in union density has occurred since the mid-1970s. This paper examines the effect of the decline in union density on the dispersion of earnings in Australia between 1986 and 1994. Changes in union density are found to have increased earnings dispersion for male employees over this period, but do not appear to have had a strong effect on earnings dispersion for female employees. The main cause of changes in earnings dispersion for both male and female employees has been an increase in the dispersion of earnings of non-union employees.     

The Views of Members towards Workplace Union Organization in Banking between 1999 and 2008

In tracing the changing perceptions of members in banking of trade union workplace organization between 1999 and 2008, this article illustrates a pattern of decline in terms of the coverage and performance of workplace organization. Contrary to the claims made by proponents of partnership arrangements, merger involvement and organizing, these strategies were not sufficient to arrest the decline in workplace organization. In consequence, members remained reliant on trade union full‐time officers for support.     

Disconnecting: Understanding decline in universal service

At a time when choices for voice service and funding for universal service were growing, the United States experienced an unprecedented drop in household telephone penetration. Universal service in voice telephony is generally taken for granted in the United States. However, recent data from the FCC shows a significant decline in the number of U.S. households that have a telephone of any kind (including mobile), from a peak in telephone penetration of 95.5% in March 2003 down to 92.9% in November 2005. This decline is both statistically significant and meaningful, as approximately 2.6% of U.S. households could not easily reach 911 for emergencies. This study uses regression analysis of state-level data to determine what drove this decline in universal service. The results demonstrate that the recent decline in universal service in the U.S. is driven by an increase in black population, inadequate consumer protection laws, and increases in wireless telephones per capita. Lifeline effectiveness does not appear to mitigate the decline in penetration, while Link-Up effectiveness may have a limited effect.     

2008年中国石油和化学工业经济形势分析

受全球金融危机的影响,2008年中国石油和化学工业经济呈现先高后低的态势,全行业景气周期由10年来的高增长转为下行通道.2008年全行业总产值6.58万亿元,比上年增长24.0%,生产增幅先高后低,年底出现负增长;市场疲软,销售率下降;石油和化工产品价格呈现先涨后跌态势;亏损企业增加,全行业利润下降;固定资产投资增势回落;进出口贸易额先增后降.当前面临的主要困难和问题有:1)石油消费需求减少,炼油企业开工率持续走低;2)化肥库存大量积压,企业经营困难;3)劳动密集型产业亏损严重;4)出口严重受阻,国内市场面临进口产品冲击.未来两年石油和化工行业形势不容乐观.但随着国家相关政策的落实,2009年产业结构、产品结构、企业兼并重组以及企业自身结构调整将非常活跃,前两个季度是石油和化工行业最为困难的时期,下半年有望好转.     

Erosion of the Ghent System and Union Membership Decline: Lessons from Finland

Union density declined in Finland by more than 10 percentage points in less than 10 years. This paper analyses the reasons behind the decline, using micro data from the 1990s. According to our results, the changes in the composition of the labour force and the changes in the labour market explain only about a quarter of this decline. The main reason for the decline appears to be the erosion of the Ghent system, due to the emergence of an independent unemployment insurance fund that provides unemployment insurance without requiring union membership. We also find that the decline in the union density can be attributed to the declining inclination of the cohorts born after the early 1960s to become union members.     

Business cycle stylized facts and inventory behaviour: New evidence for the Euro area

The purpose of this paper is for the first time to use Business Tendency Survey data, first, to identify new facts that are useful for the interpretation of the decline in the volatility of real activity in the Euro area, and, second, to test the inventory management hypothesis as an explanation for the Great Moderation in Europe. We present stylized facts from the Business Tendency data on series for inventories, current production, current orders, and expected production for the Euro area, emphasizing the decline in the volatility of the series. Further, we investigate whether the decline in inventory volatility can be attributed to an endogenous change in the persistence of shocks to the accumulation dynamics of inventories or to an exogenous change in the shocks hitting the inventory optimisation process. Our results at Euro level generally indicate that there is no evidence of a break in the inventory accumulation process. On the contrary, the impact of exogenous shocks on inventory volatility appears to be steadily declining over time, beginning from the mid-1980s.     

Declining Caseloads: What Do the Dynamics of Welfare Participation Reveal?

Recent research has attempted to explain the sharp decline in welfare caseloads that began in the mid-1990s, well before the implementation of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), by focusing on patterns in aggregate caseloads at the state level. Although this approach has aided our understanding of caseload trends, several important issues remain unresolved. In this article I assess these patterns from a different perspective and, instead, examine the flows into and out of welfare that underlie the net changes in the caseloads. I find that a decline in the rate of initial entry into welfare, a shortening of the length of welfare spells, and a reduction in the likelihood of welfare recidivism all contributed to the marked decline in aggregate caseloads observed before PRWORA's enactment. I do not find evidence providing firm support for the view that welfare-reform waivers played an important role in the shifts observed for the three transition rates that determine movements in welfare caseloads. While the presence of such waivers is found to be associated with a shortening of welfare spells in the 1990s, further examination raises doubts about a causal interpretation of this finding.     

我国商业银行市场结构现状分析及其优化研究

本文基于我国13家商业银行2000-2006年的面板数据。对我国商业银行业市场结构、绩效等情况进行实证分析。得出我国商业银行业市场集中度趋于下降.我国银行的垄断状态逐渐被打破。在商业银行市场结构与银行绩效的回归结果上表现为:伴随着市场集中度下降,各商业银行绩效得到提高;商业银行资产规模对其绩效带来负的影响;银行管理水平、创利能力对其绩效产生显著的正向影响;产品差异化与银行绩效则显示弱的正向关系。本文认为完善银行业微观基础、降低政策性市场壁垒、提高银行差异化产品的服务能力、拓展银行国际业务等是我国银行市场结构优化的方向。     

Rent Controls in Ontario: Roofs or Ceilings?

This paper describes the rent control program in Ontario and discusses the consequences of these controls. It indicates that rent controls caused both a small nominal decline and a large real decline in the per unit value of rental apartments, substantially reduced new rental housing starts, generated a rental housing shortage, created a dual market with significant rent differences between the controlled and uncontrolled (new construction) sectors, and imposed large costs on government in the form of foregone tax revenues and increased rental housing subsidies. The paper also indicates some of the political responses to the developing economic effects, such as the imposition of additional land use controls and increased government spending programs to stimulate new rental construction.     

Paradox Lost: The Disappearing Female Job Satisfaction Premium

Using the original data source of Clark, we show that over the last two decades the female satisfaction gap he documented has vanished. This reflects a strong secular decline in female job satisfaction. This decline happened both because younger women became less satisfied as they aged, and because new female workers entered with lower job satisfaction than their early 1990s peers. Decompositions make clear that the decline does not reflect changing job characteristics for women but rather their increasingly less favourable evaluation of job characteristics. These findings fit with the suggestion that women in the early 1990s had a gap between their labour market expectations and actual experience that has since closed and that the gender satisfaction gap has vanished as a consequence.     

U.S. Union Membership in Future Decades: A Trade Unionist's Perspective

Slower workforce growth, more gradual industrial restructuring, a tighter labor market, and the gradual emergence of a more efficient organizing capability will help to stem the projected decline in private-sector union membership. A broad array of consumer benefits and the development of new form of union membership, such as those that do not necessarily result in exclusive recognition, should also help stem that decline     

Declining Union Density in the 1980s: What Do Panel Data Tell Us?

In this paper we analyse data from the 1980—4 WIRS panel for the light they can shed on the causes of the decline in aggregate trade union density in the UK. We argue that, contrary to conventional wisdom, intra-establishment union density did, on average, decline between 1980 and 1984. This suggests that a traditional compositional change story is untenable. We proceed to investigate the correlation of intra-establishment change with variables suggested by the various hypotheses advanced to explain declining density over the period. We find some evidence for an influence of intra-establishment compositional changes, but the most statistically significant variables are wages and unemployment. These take the wrong sign, however, to support the business cycle interpretation of falling aggregate union density.     

Mean Reversion in Investment Decisions: The Case of Hollywood*

One explanation for the comparatively lower quality of movie sequels is selection bias, known in personnel economics as the Peter principle. Only abnormally successful movies are selected for a sequel. Another explanation is a deterministic depreciation in quality due to the decline in the novelty of the sequel’s characters and storyline. Both explanations predict that, relative to the original, the sequel’s performance will revert towards the mean. We develop a structural model to decompose the two explanations, and estimate its parameters using detailed data on 306 franchise films and 2,823 non-franchise films between 1995 and 2014. Parameter estimates provide evidence of selection bias for action & adventure and horror movies, and evidence of a deterministic decline in quality for comedies.