Young people and trade union membership: a longitudinal analysis

This paper suggests that major explanations of union membership have been flawed by the free rider paradox. It outlines a recent British theory which claims to overcome this dilemma and draws from the model hypotheses which are tested by an analysis of a longitudinal survey of London school-leavers. The findings seem to offer support for the model in its categorization of core and remainder members, and further investigation is encouraged.     

Environmental impact of customs union agreement with EU on Turkey's trade in manufacturing industry

In this study, we analyse Turkey's manufacturing industry trade by estimating sectoral import and export demand equations for 1980–2000. The study aims to understand whether the trade in the manufacturing industry complies with pollution haven hypothesis, and whether the free trade environment provided by the customs union (CU) agreement altered the trade pattern of the clean and dirty industries. Results of our econometric models have shown that while CU positively affects the import demand, it does not have any significant impact on the export demand of Turkish manufacturing industry. In terms of the environmental impact, distinction between clean and dirty industries turns out to be significant for both import and export demand. In general, our findings suggest that both clean and dirty industries’ import demand increased during the study period. In terms of export demand, clean industries’ export demand declines whereas dirty industries’ export demand increases compared to the total demand.     

The labor market effects of trade union heterogeneity

Empirical evidence suggests that the bargaining power of trade unions differs across firms and sectors. Standard models of unionization ignore this pattern by assuming a uniform bargaining strength. In this paper, we incorporate union heterogeneity into a Melitz (2003) type model. Union bargaining power is assumed to be firm-specific and varies with firm productivity. This framework allows us to re-analyze the labor market effects of (i) a symmetric increase in the bargaining power of all unions and (ii) trade liberalization. We show that union heterogeneity unambiguously reduces the negative employment effects of stronger unions. Firm-specific bargaining power creates a link between unionization and the entry and exit of firms, implying a reduction of the unions' expected bargaining power. Moreover, union heterogeneity constitutes an (un)employment effect of trade liberalization. If unions are most powerful in the high-productivity (low-productivity) firms, trade liberalization will increase (decrease) unemployment.     

Nominal uncertainty and inflation: The role of European union membership

We provide evidence that higher inflation uncertainty leads to higher inflation in the new European Union (EU) member states and candidate countries only prior to EU accession. During EU accession and entry, inflation uncertainty has no effect on mean inflation.     

Trade union membership and earnings in Kenyan manufacturing firms

This study analyses the effect of trade unions on male earnings in the Kenyan manufacturing sector using a regression method, which takes into account endogeneity of the union status of workers. In contrast to earlier studies of the Kenyan labour market that report a negative effect of unions on wages, a positive effect is found. The study further shows that elite workers tend to abstain from union membership.     

The impact of oil prices on trade

This paper introduces an oil price–distance interaction variable in a gravity equation to explain how global trade behaves as a result of oil price changes. The findings are that as oil prices increase, international trade becomes more localized in that countries begin trading relatively more with their neighbors. In contrast, when they decrease, trade becomes more dispersed in that the distance between countries becomes less relevant. These results are highly significant across specifications, and the magnitude is not to be ignored. According to the full specification an oil price halving will make trade more dispersed by relatively increasing trade by 40% for a distance of 10,000 miles and by 25% for a distance of 1,000 miles.     

Duration dependent unemployment benefits in trade union theory

The basic trade union model is generalized to allow for an unemployment benefit system consisting of two benefit levels, one for short-term and one for long-term unemployed, and a rule determining whether an unemployed is short- or long-term. Under relatively mild conditions we show that benefit systems with no or positive duration dependence are dominated by a system with negative duration dependence in the sense that all union members achieve higher utility, unemployment is lower, and benefit expenditures are smaller.     

Does a currency union affect trade? The time-series evidence

Does leaving a currency union reduce international trade? We answer this question using a large annual panel data set covering 217 countries from 1948 through 1997. During this sample a large number of countries left currency unions; they experienced economically and statistically significant declines in bilateral trade, after accounting for other factors. Assuming symmetry, we estimate that a pair of countries that starts to use a common currency experiences a near doubling in bilateral trade.     

The impact on Greek agriculture from membership in the European economic community

This paper estimates empirically the impact of Greek membership in the European Economic Community (EEC) on production, consumption, and trade of 18 major agricultural products of Greece. The model used combines the limited available data into a multiproduct supply and demand framework and quantifies the effect of transferring the EEC agricultural price structure on Greece. The basic results indicate that Greek farmers would lose substantially and their agricultural balance of trade seriously deteriorate, while Greek consumers would not be seriously affected as a consequence of EEC membership in 1986. Sensitivity analysis on several key assumptions and consideration of structural effects seem to support these conclusions.     

The impact of trade agreements on world export prices

This paper uncovers new stylized facts on the relation between economic integration and world trade prices. Using free on board export price data for the universe of manufacturing products, we show that a country's membership in the WTO (World Trade Organization) or in a PTA (Preferential Trade Agreement) is associated with an increase in export prices of differentiated goods. For the WTO, this effect is captured by the countries that were subject to rigorous WTO accession procedures. We also exploit the importance of the depth of a PTA and of its different provisions. Whereas the effect of the depth per se is not significant, individual provisions evoke distinct effects on prices. In particular, we find that PTAs with provisions on investments are associated with higher export prices. The results are consistent with theoretical models that relate competition to the innovation behavior of firms.     

The nonlinear impact of currency unions on bilateral trade

Most gravity model specifications assume that a currency union varies the level of bilateral trade between members by a constant proportion. We demonstrate that a common currency also alters the slope of the relationship between bilateral trade and member country GDPs.     

A survival analysis approach to the duration of union membership in Italy

Thanks to direct access to union databases, this article applies survival analysis to a sample of 47?637 Italian workers trying to explain the determinants of the duration of union membership. The results show that union membership duration is a positive, though declining, function of age. Furthermore, women, flexible workers, foreign ones and those working in cities tend to show less attachment to union membership than other workers. The estimated median duration is about 6 years. Positive hazard duration dependence is also found. Unobserved heterogeneity is detected but it does not significantly affect model estimates.     

The effect of a currency union on trade: Lessons from the Irish experience

This paper studies the introduction of an exchange rate between Ireland and the UK in 1979 to shed light on the effects of a common currency on the composition of international trade. No evidence is found from time series or panel regressions that the change of exchange rate regime had a significant effect on Anglo-Irish trade. This finding is consistent with previous studies of currency unions between larger, developed countries but conflicts with findings based on more heterogeneous country groupings. The reasons for this discrepancy are discussed.     

数字贸易对中国高质量充分就业的影响

在新发展阶段如何通过数字贸易推动高质量充分就业备受关注。本文基于2013—2020年我国30个省(市、自治区)(因数据缺失,不包括西藏和港澳台地区)的面板数据,利用熵值法对数字贸易与高质量充分就业发展水平进行测度,理论阐释并实证检验了数字贸易对高质量充分就业的影响及其作用机制。研究表明：考察期数字贸易对高质量充分就业有显著推动作用,在考虑内生性问题后该结论依然稳健。机制检验结果揭示,产业结构升级与人力资本积累分别从劳动力的需求和供给端发挥着重要的中介渠道作用。门槛分析显示数字贸易水平越高,对高质量充分就业的推动作用越强。空间溢出检验发现,本地数字贸易发展对邻地就业产生正向溢出效应。异质性检验中,数字贸易对高质量就业比对充分就业的推动作用更大,对东部地区的作用强于中西部地区。研究结论为更全面地考察数字贸易对高质量充分就业的影响提供理论依据、实证支持和政策参考。     

State dependence,serial correlation and heterogeneity in the union membership dynamics

In order to distinguish the true and spurious state dependence from the complicated dynamics of union membership, the simulation estimators incorporating the lagged dependent variables, unobserved individual heterogeneity and correlations among the errors are implemented in this article to study union membership dynamics. It is found that the true state dependence of union membership under multivariate t assumption is much higher than the standard dynamic panel probit estimators which are under multivariate normal assumptions. On the other hand, the spurious state dependence (the variance of the unobserved individual heterogeneity) is estimated to be higher when using the standard dynamic panel probit estimators than under multivariate t assumption. Moreover, blacks and married men are found to have higher union membership true state dependence than whites and unmarried men.