COALITION FORMATION AND BARGAINING PROTOCOLS: A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

This paper offers a review of the vast literature regarding bargaining and coalition formation. This topic has been generally described as the attempt to provide strategic foundations to cooperative solution concepts. It can therefore be seen as the linking ring between the non‐cooperative and the cooperative game‐theoretic approach to coalition formation. Its central role in economic theory and its relatively long history that goes back to the Nash program have fostered a large academic production, including surveys. Nonetheless, this paper will focus on an aspect that is often neglected in the dedicated surveys: the specificities of the bargaining protocols leading to different outcomes. Although generally downgraded to the rank of details, the differences in bargaining protocols, even when minor, can cause significant changes in fundamental aspects such as the possibility to reach full cooperation, the distribution of final pay‐offs and the time taken to reach an agreement. Focused on externalities‐free games, therefore on bargaining protocols sustaining solution concepts for cooperative games in characteristic function form, the paper aims at providing a brief but exhaustive review of the topic that could result in a very useful tool for any researcher approaching the subject of coalitional bargaining.     

The "New" Political Economies (A View from Russia)

This paper analyses some of the problems created by a rapidly changing interaction between the political and the economic spheres in society. In periods of condensed social change this interaction is profoundly different from customary evolutionary developments. In Russia various political economic concepts during the last century have led to profound shifts in economic mechanisms and structures (first toward a planned economy, later toward a market one). A knowledge of this experience (and the new problems that surface) might be useful if globalisation, environmental issues and the transition to a post-industrial society should lead to periods of condensed socioeconomic change in the West.     

DO CRISES INDUCE REFORM? A CRITICAL REVIEW OF CONCEPTION,METHODOLOGY AND EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE OF THE ‘CRISIS HYPOTHESIS’

The notion that economic crises induce the adoption of reform ranks among the most widely accepted concepts in the political economics literature. However, the underlying mechanism of the so‐called ‘crisis hypothesis’ has yet to be fully understood. This paper provides a comprehensive survey of the relevant empirical evidence to date, and scrutinizes the operationalization of the hypothesis’ key concepts: crisis, reform and the political mediation of reform during crises. We argue that the social perception of both crises and the subsequent cost of reform requires consideration of how these concepts are operationalized. As a product of the broader economic and institutional environment, social perceptions largely determine the manner in which the political mediation of reform during crises works. Present‐day methodological approaches fail to adequately reflect social perceptions and consequently compromise the determination of what constitutes both crisis and the cost of reform in the context of the crisis hypothesis. Most notably, the identification of crises by fixed thresholds constructed around macroeconomic variables impedes the interpretation of the hypothesis’ underlying mechanism. A fuller treatment of social perception within the operationalization of the hypothesis’ key concepts can enhance our understanding of how economic crises influence political dynamics in bringing about reform.     

The Geometry of Comparative Industrial Relations: Efficiency,Equity and Voice

This article focuses on John Budd’s efficiency, equity and voice concepts. The discussion considers the concepts’ utility as a framework for analyzing different national patterns of industrial relations in a comparative perspective. The article considers eight forms of employment relationships: social partnerships, sectoral bargaining, centralized awards, enterprise unionism, exclusive representation, codetermination, the US new deal system and voluntarism. The author concludes that this is a useful framework for such purposes, and that it is following the industrial relations tradition of pluralism.     

Politics in wage setting: does government colour matter?

This paper studies the relationship between wage formation and the political colour of the government in an economy with a centralized wage bargaining system. Ideological, organizational and personal ties between the central trade union and the social democratic political party suggest that the trade union may behave significantly different in wage negotiations under a social democratic than under a conservative government. Using time series data for Norway, we estimate that changing from a conservative to a social democratic central government significantly reduces manufacturing wages and makes wages more responsive to unemployment. This result is consistent with a wage bargaining model augmented by political preferences of the union leaders and suggests that the effect of bargaining coordination depends on the political colour of the government. The estimated effects are both robust with respect to model specification and stable over time. We are grateful to Fredrik Wulfsberg, participants at seminars in Trondheim and Oslo, and an anonymous referee for valuable comments.     

The crisis of mass integration: on the development of political repression in Federal Germany

The aim of this essay is to investigate the bases and the specific forms of the development of the political repression which can be clearly observed at the present time in West Germany. The principal fact to be explained is that this development is being implemented by a social democratic-liberal government coalition, which leaves the institutions of the bourgeois-democratic system untouched and receives backing from the Trade Unions. Current attempts to explain this phemomenon, such as the theory of a 'new fascism', have proved to be inadequate. The essay begins by providing a brief overview of the theoretical starting point adopted and proceeds to sketch the economic, social and political conditions for successful mass integration in developed capitalist societies. The increase in repressive tendencies in the state apparatus is traced back to the specific forms in which the institutions for mass integration have failed to fulfil their roles, the main basis of which is to be found in the development of the current economic and social crisis. The most important tendencies in the economic development of the FRG and the particular structures of its political and administrative system are presented in order to validate this thesis. The decisive moment of political destablization can be seen in the growth of autonomous political movements outside the sphere of established institutions. These movements constitute an increasing threat to the existing institutional system of mass integration. The development of repression which has occurred in response to this is directed at a preventive safeguarding of the existing apparatuses for mass integration and at preserving the state's apparatus for the exercise of force as a crisis-reserve. This repression, which has not yet taken the form of the open use of force against the mass of the population—in particular established workers' organizations—is primarily directed against dissident individuals and groups within the state and ideological apparatuses, and against initial steps towards autonomous political organizations and forms of economic—political representation which are not based on the acceptance or granting of concessions.     

The impact of HRM practices on service quality,customer satisfaction and performance in the Indian hotel industry

This article reviews findings from a first survey of employers' views on collective bargaining reform that now forms the centrepiece of post-apartheid South Africa's experiment with 'democratic corporatism'. Using factor analysis, three constructs have been identified that inform employer attitudes to a revised system of sectoral bargaining: 'autonomous capacity'; 'conditional association'; 'external threat'. Despite the potential for anomie, these factors appear significant in the way they consistently explain an employer's orientation towards associational membership and, by proxy, sectoral bargaining. Moreover, at least two-thirds of responding firms identified strongly with each of the three factors but, typically, firms with weak capacity and in need of collective protection from the other actors are most likely to associate. Regression analysis further reveals company well-being, foreign ownership and union presence to have a significant impact on these three factors to varying degrees. Equally, two of the factors (autonomous capacity and external threat) impact significantly on an employer's tolerance of free-riding in others and on the temptation to do so for oneself. Overall, for this sample of firms, employer bodies are to be viewed more as 'political devices' than as 'economic agents' in the immediate aftermath of political liberation. In this sense, they are different from their European counter-parts. However, there is an increasing likelihood of this changing as the flexibility agenda looms ever larger in employers' minds and as issues of 'political insecurity' correspondingly fade.     

Emergence of Political Unionism in Economies of British Colonial Origin: The Cases of Jamaica and Trinidad

Abstract . What were the circumstances under which political unionism has emerged in economies of British colonial origin, such as Jamaica and Trinidad? The hypothesis tested is that the political activities of trade unions in such economies played a role in the process of economic development, helping to achieve political independence and then economic growth. But at that stage political unionism is found to be incompatible with needed acceleration of growth rates. A significant deterioration in economic and social conditions produced a crisis and the unions traded support for the parties for some control over economic and social policy. This gave the political leaders the power they needed to negotiate for independence but, in Jamaica, it changed the focus and character of the labor movement.     

Trade union membership trends in seven Western European countries 1950—1968

Post-War trade union membership developments have received relatively little academic attention, in view of the importance attributed to trades union organization in the collective bargaining system, in the social, political and economic fields, in the relationships between organized labour and governments and, in particular, in the efforts to devise institutional arrangements suitable for dealing with wage-price inflation. Union membership levels, the effective power of central federations and some of their individual affiliates, shifts in membership and the often concomitant changes in the political status of a union or unions and the degree of organization of a nation's labour force—are all important aspects of the potential role of trade union movements within the socio-economic and political life of a nation. The objects of this paper are to examine membership levels and changes, density of organization, membership concentration and the membership experiences of the six largest unions within the trades union movements of Austria, Denmark, Germany (Federal Republic), Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom over the postwar period.     

层次分析法在经济强县特征分析中的应用

本文用层次分析方法对影响县域经济社会发展的8个重要指标做层次分析,确定所研究的全部县域经济社会发展综合实力排序位次,找出主要因素和各影响因素影响程度的大小,为决策部门提供经济发展切实有效的理论依据。并用贵州省每个年度全部县域经济社会发展实际例子说明回归模型及层次分析法对经济强县特征分析作用。     

Regulating,joint bargaining,and the demise of precedent

Recent decades have seen a fundamental shift in the nature of economic regulation in the United States. Unauthorized by congress, and largely unnoted in legal and academic circles, regulatory agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission have changed the regulatory process by linking otherwise unrelated regulatory issues. Examples include tying merger approval to firm commitments to engage in conceptually unrelated build‐outs and other projects of political importance. This linking of issues has several effects, the most prominent being (a) tying regulatory issues changes the outcomes obtained, plausibly in predictable ways; (b) tying in some circumstances allows regulators to extend their authority to issues for which they have little or no legal authority; and (c) tied regulatory bargaining fails to produce valid legal precedent for firm decision making. We provide an analysis of these conclusions by examining the increasing use of consent decrees, voluntary merger commitments, and merger conditions by the Federal Communications Commission, referencing our discussion with a simple model of joint bargaining applicable to regulatory practice.     

A non-cooperative interpretation of bargaining sets

This paper provides a non-cooperative interpretation for bargaining sets concepts in economic environments. We investigate the implementability of the Aumann-Maschler and Mas-Colell bargaining sets, and provide mechanisms whose subgame perfect equilibrium outcomes realize these sets. These mechanisms, in contrast to general mechanisms suggested in the implementation literature, have a natural structure closely related to that of the rationale underlying the bargaining sets. Furthermore, the strategy sets consist mainly of allocations and coalitions (thus avoiding any reference to preference parameters) and are finite dimensional. Received: 17 February 1997 / Accepted: 2 February 1999     

Adolph Lowe's Paradigm Shift for a Scientific Economics: An Interpretive Perspective

A bstract . The economist Adolph Lowe has developed a methodological alternative, designated Political Economics , for the development of economic theory and the application of economic policy. In totality his system—with a methodology he calls instrumental—makes up a unity that can be seen as a logically derived paradigm shift for economics as a scientific discipline. Under it, by a democratic political process , some desired end-state is first consciously and systematically determined. Then economic means are instrumentally employed to bring about the economic and social behavior necessary to attain and maintain that end-state. Available knowledge and tools are useful for this model; however, there is no question that the approach raises significant technical, political and philosophical issues. But these are overshadowed by Lowe's paradigmatic vision, and its corollary modular framework of Political Economics.     

Catholic Social Thought and New Institutional Economics: An Assessment of Their Affinities and Areas of Potential Convergence

The potential link between Catholic social teaching (CST) and the theoretical developments associated with new institutional economics (NIE) are explored. The emphasis is on the contributions of two Nobel Prize winners in economics—Douglass C. North and Elinor Ostrom—and on the work of political scientist Vincent Ostrom. By adjusting the neoclassical presumptions dominating modern economic theory to include culture, ideas, and religious beliefs in the analysis of economic behavior, the economic and social theorizing developed by these scholars advances a framework that has significant affinities with CST’s foundational critique of economic concepts and theories and with its normative position regarding the nature and functioning of social and economic systems.     

Strategic militancy and the probability of strikes in union-firm bargaining

The paper provides a model that explains the probability of strikes by the union's use of militancy as a strategic tool in bargaining. Militants are useful because they provide a credible threat, hence enhancing the union's bargaining position. Using a multi-stage bargaining game, we show that, in general, militants will be used by the union as a strategic tool. The strategic benefit of militancy is reflected by the fact that the wage and employment level will be higher in a union that uses militants, compared to a union that does not. We use the model to show that the level of militancy and the probability of a strike decrease with the union's power. This suggests that policies that increase the strength of the union will have, at least, a partial positive effect on social welfare. We also show that the model can be viewed as providing an equilibrium of a repeated game, an interpretation that can explain the probability of strikes even in the absence of militants.     

Efficiency analysis of social protection expenditure in the Italian Regions

The attention and demand for greater social protection is increasing among the populations of all European countries. It is difficult to identify which of the structures and infrastructures, sectors and regional budgets are inefficient and/or negligent in respect of providing more social protection. In the political sphere the problem is examined from a qualitative point of view, because it is essential to have a valid decisional support system that provides useful information for structural and economic intervention programs devised to improve social protection. Regional spending on social protection is a fundamental component of individual well-being. This work is precisely aimed at assessing individual well-being in terms of technical expenses efficiency in the Italian Regions. Stochastic frontier analysis and a nonparametric deterministic model structure are the tools used to investigate the social protection determinants in the paper.     

新兴经济体发展对国际社会的影响力研究

当今世界经济呈现多极化趋势,新兴经济体成为世界经济增长的主要动力,对世界政治经济格局产生深刻影响。本文阐述新兴经济体在政治、经济、社会等各方面发展状况,分析新兴经济体的发展对国际社会的影响力。新兴经济体的发展促进了世界经济、国际贸易的稳步发展和产业结构调整,为消除世界范围的贫困和维护世界和平做出了积极的贡献,为发展中国家加快发展和加强“区域化”多边合作提供了可借鉴模式,同时对全球治理结构转型和国际秩序重塑产生一定影响。     

Collective bargaining in Portugal in the aftermath of the crisis: trends and prospects

This article examines the decline of collective bargaining in Portugal during the recent economic crisis and why, following significant improvements in the economic and political contexts, the number of collective agreements published each year remains lower than before. Drawing on theoretical work on institutional change by Streeck and Thelen (2005) and Baccaro and Howell (2017), it argues that industrial relations institutions in Portugal have been subject to an incremental but transformative process of liberalisation. The analysis of national data and in‐depth interviews with key informants reveals that serial legal amendments since the 1990's weakened unions, converted bargaining into a mechanism to introduce flexibility and wage austerity and reduced incentives for the parties to conclude agreements. While these changes were gradual, their consequences became clear during the crisis. By improving understanding of recent developments in Portuguese collective bargaining, the article enriches knowledge of processes of liberalisation of industrial relations in Europe.     

谈新形势下如何做好交通系统员工的思想政治工作

当前,我国面临的发展机遇前所未有,面对的挑战也前所未有。我国已进入改革发展的关键时期,经济体制发生了深刻变革,社会结构发生了深刻变动,利益格局被进行重大调整,思想观念不断变化更新。这种空前的社会变革,必然会给各行各业带来巨大的发展活力,同时也带来各种各样的问题。如何做好新形势下交通系统员工的思想政治工作是一个崭新的课题,文章对此提出自己的见解。     

Free collective bargaining and incomes policy: learning from Barbara Wootton and Hugh Clegg on post‐war British Industrial Relations and wage inequality

Growing income inequality has returned as a major political issue in affluent, advanced economies, often associated directly with the decline of trade unions and collective bargaining. In policy terms, this has been reflected in the British campaign for a ‘Living Wage’ and the new German minimum wage. Yet on the broader front, Industrial Relations (IR) struggles to find a credible regulatory strategy to address inequality—one that combines state and civil society initiatives and can be legitimised in political philosophy. This History and Policy article argues that there is much to learn from the IR past, before neo‐liberalism. My focus is the writing of Barbara Wootton and Hugh Clegg on ‘Incomes Policy’, from the 1950s to the early 1980s, when this was a central intellectual and policy issue in British IR. I explore the differing justifications for Incomes Policy, from corporatist macro‐economic management to social equality, comparing and contrasting the democratic socialist political principles of Wootton with Clegg's social democratic pluralism. The conclusion relates this historical debate between state pattern and civil society process to current concerns about how social democratic ideas and IR policy can address the problem of labour market inequality.