TAXES ON PAYROLL, REVENUES AND PROFITS IN THREE MODELS OF COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

Variations in company taxes are analysed for a right-to-manage model, an efficient bargaining setting and a seniority approach. Taxes cannot be shifted forward by the risk-neutral firm. Alternative income and bargaining power are allowed to vary with taxes. Employing asymmetric Nash solution it is found that changes in a payroll, revenue or profit tax can have differing implications for labour demand curve models and efficient bargaining solutions. This distinction might provide a novel basis for empirical work. Variations in bargaining power and-within a labour demand curve setting-the union's objective function do not change results.     

How does bargaining power affect remittances?

This paper examines the factors affecting the amount of remittances by migrants to their home countries, in a context of a family bargaining model. Spanish data does not show the same clear relationship between remittances and migrant income that is captured in the theoretical literature and certain empirical papers. Family bargaining models emerge as a useful framework within which to study remittances, and bargaining power is a key element in determining the level of such remittances. As a consequence of the consideration of bargaining power, the effect of income levels on remittances emerges as non-monotonic.     

The market for bushmeat: Colobus Satanas on Bioko Island

Species conservation is an important issue worldwide. The market for monkeys consumed as food on Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea, is modeled as a bargaining game. The bargaining set-up leads to the conclusion that black colobus are being over-hunted. Using daily data an empirical density is fit to the price-quantity pairs resulting from exchange between buyers and retailers. The density provides support for the bargaining model. Quantile regressions are also fit to the data. The median quantile indicates buyers have greater bargaining power than retailers. Knowing who has bargaining power aids in the design of policy to reduce bushmeat hunting. Strategic elasticities are constructed from the quantiles. Given the harvest rate of monkeys and the elasticity estimates, the monkeys of Bioko Island are under considerable pressure.     

Trade and unions: Does size matter?

Our empirical analysis builds upon the hypothesis that unions are detrimental to a firm's efficiency. Using a rich survey of German manufacturers, we investigate firm-level determinants on the probability of collective wage bargaining with particular focus on the impact of a firm's engagement in foreign markets. An interesting and very robust finding is that exporters are less likely to engage in union wage bargaining. This finding is in line with a pessimistic perception of unions. The negative effect of collective bargaining can be offset by efficiency gains for larger exporters, who can benefit from operation cost saving effects. Size does matter as larger firms export and may find bargaining with a single entity representing the workforce more convenient than bargaining with each worker individually. We are using firm level information on IT investment as instrument for the export dummy and successfully test for the validity of this instrument.     

Improving Assessments of Gender Bargaining Power: A Case Study from Bangladesh

Gender bargaining power has entered into mainstream economic theory and public policy. However, common empirical measures are only loosely related to the theoretical concept, and research has not produced consistent results regarding the causal chains underlying women’s empowerment. This study critically examines accepted measures of bargaining power, arguing that participation in specific household decisions is not directly associated with the theoretical concept of bargaining power. The study analyzes the relationship between measures of participation in household decisions and individual and household characteristics thought to contribute to bargaining power. Using Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) data on Bangladesh over the period 1999–2011, the study finds that despite the loose relationship of the survey questions to the theoretical construct bargaining power, the decision-making questions provide relatively consistent and theoretically supported measures of this unobservable characteristic. Simple changes in using the measures would contribute to more robust and consistent findings.     

The impact of vertical integration on the wage bargain: new evidence

This paper considers the impact of vertical integration on the bargaining power relationship between employers and workers. We argue that vertical integration may have either a positive or a negative effect on the employer's position. The relationship between vertical integration of the firm and wages remains, therefore, an empirical question which this paper sets out to resolve. We do this using regression analysis and by employing a new measure of vertical integration. Our results suggest that contrary to the evidence of some previous studies, vertical integration can enhance employer bargaining power.     

议价能力变化对家务劳动时间配置的影响——来自中国双收入家庭的经验证据

本文在纳什议价模型基础上,使用来自中国9个省的双收入家庭的调查数据,检验了议价能力变化对家务劳动时间配置的影响。结果发现,议价能力提高将减少本人的家务劳动时间和家务分担比例,并使本人家务劳动时间和家务分担比例对其他因素的弹性增大。议价能力的影响存在明显的性别差异,对男性的效果强于对女性的效果。本文拓展了已有的关于家庭内部时间配置的研究成果,对议价能力的定义和衡量方法做了探讨,并通过实证分析显示出议价能力在家务劳动时间配置上起着不可忽视的作用。     

Works Councils and Collective Bargaining in Germany: The Impact on Productivity and Wages

This paper investigates the interaction between establishment‐level codetermination and industry‐level collective bargaining in Germany. Based on a bargaining model, we derive our main hypothesis: In establishments covered by collective bargaining agreements, works councils are more likely to be engaged in productivity‐enhancing activities and less engaged in rent‐seeking activities than their counterparts in uncovered establishments. Our empirical analysis confirms this hypothesis. The presence of works councils exerts a positive impact on productivity within the covered industrial relations regime but not within the uncovered regime. The presence of works councils has a positive effect on wages within the uncovered regime but not to the same degree within the covered regime.     

Managerial Bargaining Power in the Determination of Compensation Contracts and Corporate Investment

This paper considers the design of managerial compensation contracts and their impact on corporate investment decisions and the managerial effort decision. The model relates the compensation scheme to outside share ownership and managerial bargaining position. Using the methods of mechanism design under asymmetric information, a shift in favor of effort is documented in the case where managerial bargaining strength is weak, while a shift toward more use of capital investment results from strong managerial bargaining power. The model distinguishes managerial equity holdings from contingent compensation contracts. Our results are related to the empirical literature on pay-performance sensitivities.     

Duration and competing-risks determinants of terrorist hostage-taking incidents

This paper applies survival analysis to ascertain the key empirical determinants of the duration of terrorist hostage-taking incidents during 1978–2018. Our theoretical hypotheses are primarily based on John Cross’s bargaining model where negotiation duration depends on initial negotiation spread, bargaining costs, and perceived uncertainty. For hostage events, greater initial demands of the terrorists increase incident length by augmenting the negotiation spread. Sequential release of hostages, demanding the release of imprisoned comrades, changing demands during negotiations, capturing of protected persons, and engaging in kidnappings lengthen hostage incidents by affecting bargaining costs and perceived uncertainty. The number of nonterrorists wounded and the heterogeneity of the hostage-taking squad generally reduce incident length. Based on a competing-risk analysis, we identify factors, consistent with Nash bargaining, affecting three alternative outcomes for hostage incidents.     

Gamson's Law versus non-cooperative bargaining theory

We compare Gamson's Law, a popular empirical model of legislative bargaining, with two non-cooperative bargaining models in three players divide the dollar games in which no player has enough votes to form a winning coalition on their own. Both of the game theoretic models better organize the comparative static data resulting from changes in nominal bargaining power than does Gamson's Law. We also identify deviations from the point predictions of the non-cooperative bargaining models. Namely, proposer power is not nearly as strong as predicted under the Baron–Ferejohn model, and a significant number of bargaining rounds tend to take more than two steps under demand bargaining and more than one stage under Baron–Ferejohn, counter to the models' predictions. Regressions using the experimental data provide results similar to the field data, but fail to do so once one accounts for predictions regarding coalition composition under Gamson's Law.     

企业独占性与其市场议价能力间关系的实证研究——以浙江省工业企业为例

通过对浙江省工业企业的调查问卷进行统计分析,讨论了企业独占性的三种表现形式——市场独占性、品牌独占性和技术独占性。采用理论分析与实证分析相结合的研究方法,对不同独占性下企业的议价能力进行研究。结果表明:企业独占性对其议价能力有显著的正向影响,提高独占性是提升企业议价能力的有力手段,其中市场独占性对企业议价能力的影响最大,其次是品牌独占性和技术独占性。     

Frictional wage dispersion with Bertrand competition: An assessment

I examine whether a version of the Cahuc et al. (2006) model can match the magnitude of wage dispersion, as measured by the ratio of the average and the lowest wage — the so-called mean-min ratio of Hornstein et al. (2011). I find that the workers? bargaining power is a crucial parameter: the mean-min ratio strictly decreases in the bargaining power up to a point near 1/2 and is essentially flat thereafter, generating the same amount of wage dispersion as the canonical wage ladder model, which is a special case of the CPVR model. Consequently, this model can yield large wage dispersion only for low bargaining power on the workers? side. I show that the share of job-to-job transitions with wage drops is decreasing in the bargaining power, calibrate the latter to the former, and demonstrate that the CPVR model generates an empirically plausible amount of wage dispersion. I also show that negative wages arise when workers have no bargaining power, and discuss the implications for the empirical findings of Postel-Vinay and Robin (2002b).     

Collective bargaining and school district test scores: evidence from Ohio bargaining agreements

We revisit the relationship between collective bargaining by teachers unions and school performance. The empirical literature in this area has found mixed results at both the state and district levels. We contribute to this literature in two ways. First, rather than simply dummy union status, we proxy for the restrictiveness of collective bargaining agreements with the number of pages per agreement. Second, we employ Bayesian spatial methods to deal with spatial dependence in school district activities. Our reduced-form results indicate that collective bargaining directly lowers scores on high school math scores, but that the total effect is zero.     

议价力、专业知识能力与风险投资最优组合企业数量

风险投资机构通常持有一定数量的组合企业,而议价力和专业知识能力与最优组合企业数量间关系密切。将议价力和专业知识能力引入风险投资组合企业数量选择问题中,运用合作博弈与最优化理论方法,基于议价力和专业知识能力,建立决策模型并进行实证分析。研究发现,议价力和专业知识能力在风险投资组合企业数量确定过程中具有互补作用,专业知识能力强的机构会投资更多数量创业企业,而议价力决定了风险投资机构与创业企业间的利润分配结构,从而间接对组合企业数量产生非单调影响。模型一方面为风险投资机构根据自身情况和外部环境作出组合企业数量决策提供了理论依据;另一方面,从与以往研究不同的视角阐释了风险投资组合企业数量与利润分配结构间的关系。     

Sequential R&D and blocking patents in the dynamics of growth

The incentives to conduct basic or applied research play a central role for economic growth. How does increasing early innovation appropriability affect basic research, applied research, innovation and growth? In a common law system an explicitly dynamic macroeconomic analysis is appropriate. This paper analyzes the macroeconomic effects of patent protection by incorporating a two-stage cumulative innovation structure into a quality-ladder growth model with endogenous skill acquisition. We focus on two issues: (a) the over-protection versus the under-protection of intellectual property rights in basic research; (b) the evolution of jurisprudence shaping the bargaining power of the upstream innovators. We show that the dynamic general equilibrium interactions may seriously mislead the empirical assessment of the growth effects of IPR policy: stronger protection of upstream innovation always looks bad in the short- and possibly medium-run. We also provide a simple “rule of thumb” indicator of the basic researcher bargaining power.     

Inefficiency and social exclusion in a coalition formation game: experimental evidence

This paper experimentally investigates the impact of reciprocal behavior in multilateral bargaining and coalition formation. Our results show that reciprocal fairness strongly affects the efficiency and equity of coalition formation. In a large majority of cases, inefficient and unfair coalitions are chosen when their coalition values are relatively high. Up to one third of the experimental population is excluded from bargaining and earns nothing. In monetary terms economically significant efficiency losses occur. We find that the interplay of selfish and reciprocal behavior unavoidably leads to this undesirable consequences. We also compare the predictions of recently developed models of social preferences with our experimental results. We find that some of these models capture the empirical regularities surprisingly well.     

Debt Concentration and Bargaining Power: Large Banks,Small Banks,and Secondary Market Prices

Commerical bank debts of developing countries are held by large international banks and smaller domestic banks. This paper investigates how debt concentration—the proportion of a country's debt held by large banks relative to small banks—affects the secondary market price for these loans. We find that countries with higher concentrations have higher secondary-market prices. We explain this empirical finding in a bargaining model that endogenizes the maximum penalty that banks can credibly impose on a recalcitrant debtor. We show that the banks' bargaining power increases with the degree of debt concentration, thus increasing repayment and secondary-market prices.     

Communication in bargaining over decision rights

This paper develops a model of bargaining over decision rights between an uninformed principal and an informed but self-interested agent. We introduce two different bargaining mechanisms: tacit and explicit bargaining. In tacit bargaining, an uninformed principal makes a take-it-or-leave-it price offer to the agent, who then decides whether to accept or reject the offer. In the equilibrium of the game, the principal inefficiently screens out some agent types so that the agent's private information cannot be fully utilized when the decision is made. In explicit bargaining in which parties can communicate explicitly via cheap talk before tacit bargaining, however, an equilibrium with no such inefficient screening exists even when the conflict of interest is arbitrarily large. We also follow a mechanism design approach, showing that under certain conditions, explicit bargaining is an optimal bargaining mechanism that maximizes the joint surplus of the parties.     

Bargaining and Opinion Assignment on the US Supreme Court

We formulate a new game-theoretic model of bargaining on theUS Supreme Court. In the model, a degree of monopoly power overpolicy endogenously accrues to the assigned writer despite an"open rule" permitting other justices to make counteroffers.We assume justices are motivated ultimately by a concern forjudicial policy, but that the policy impact of an opinion dependspartly on its persuasiveness, clarity, and craftsmanship—itslegal quality. The effort cost of producing a high-quality opinioncreates a wedge that the assignee can exploit to move an opinionfrom the median without provoking a winning counteroffer. Weuse this bargaining model as the foundation for a formal analysisof opinion assignment. Both the bargaining and opinion assignmentmodels display rich and tractable comparative statics, allowingthem to explain well-known empirical regularities, as well asto generate new propositions, all within a unified and internallyconsistent framework.