UNION-OLIGOPOLY SEQUENTIAL BARGAINING: TRADE AND INDUSTRIAL POLICIES

This paper considers the efficacy and the desirability of homegovernment tariff and subsidy policies when labour market structureand asymmetries in the firms' size matter. In a Cournot-Nashduopolistic sector, a unionized home-firm competes against anon-unionized foreign firm. The home firm-union choose wagesand employment in a two-stage Nash bargaining game. The secondstage corresponds to the Cournot-Nash game with the foreignfirm. Firms may play in strategic substitutes or complements.As the home bargainers recognize that market shares are determinedby relative marginal costs, they may use the wage stage strategically.Home government policy choices critically depend upon the bargainingstructure and general equilibrium spillovers.     

Worker Adaptation and the Desire for Accommodations after the Onset of a Disability

I use a multinomial logit model to estimate the probability of the type of adaptation or employment response individuals make after the onset of disability, using the Participation and Activity Limitation Survey from Canada. I consider three types of adaptations: no change in jobs, changing jobs, and leaving employment. I also examine worker desires for employer accommodations, which are arrangements employers make for disabled persons after the onset of a disability.     

State Dependence,Accommodations, and the Postinjury Employment of Disabled Workers

This paper examines the postinjury employment patterns of disabled workers from Ontario, Canada by estimating a dynamic probit model with unobserved effects. The estimates indicate that there is some state dependence in the conditional probability of leaving employment for health reasons and that an employer accommodation can reduce the conditional probability of leaving employment for health reasons by 33 percent. Moreover, a supplementary cross‐sectional analysis confirms that accommodations can reduce the probability of leaving employment.     

Unions and the Duration of Workers' Compensation Claims

This paper examines the effect of union status on workers' compensation claim duration in Canada. I find that unionized workers have shorter claims than nonunionized workers and that relatively little of this difference can be attributed to differences in worker or job characteristics. I interpret this as being consistent with a strong union effect that reduces union member's claim duration. Plausible explanations for this finding and directions for future research are also discussed.     

Regional Income Disparity and the Size of the Public Sector

This paper explores the impact of income inequality between jurisdictions on government decision making affecting the size of the public sector. We model policy choices as the outcome of regional representatives' negotiations in the legislature. We show that the more unequal interregional income distribution is, the greater the underprovision of public goods. More specifically, greater interregional income disparity leads to a smaller public sector. A wealthier economy as a result may have a relatively smaller government size when income disparity increases.     

THE RISE IN US BUSINESS FAILURES: CORRECTING THE 1984 DATA DISCONTINUITY

In 1984 Dun and Bradstreet expanded the business-failure series,making it discontinuous. We construct consistent spliced serieson the rate, size, and liabilities of business failures. Weshow that using published, discontinuous data can lead to misleadingresults.     

An Inflation‐Predicting Measure of the Output Gap in the Euro Area

Using a small Bayesian dynamic factor model of the euro area, we estimate the deviations of output from its trend that are consistent with the behavior of inflation. We label these deviations the output gap. In order to pin down the features of the model, we evaluate the accuracy of real‐time inflation forecasts from different model specifications. The version that forecasts inflation best implies that after the 2011 sovereign debt crisis, the output gap in the euro area has been much larger than the official estimates. Versions featuring a secular stagnation‐like slowdown in trend growth, and hence a small output gap after 2011, do not adequately capture the inflation developments.