IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/buecrs/v70y2018i1p35-50.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Union–Firm Bargaining Agenda Revisited: When Unions Have Distinct Preferences

Author

Listed:
  • Luciano Fanti
  • Domenico Buccella

Abstract

In this paper we revisit the issue of the scope of bargaining between firms and unions by considering a more general union's utility function with distinct preferences and sequential negotiations. First, we compare exogenously given labour market institutions; i.e., right†to†manage (RTM) and sequential efficient bargaining (SEB). We show that the conventional wisdom, which states that firms always prefer RTM, no longer holds. In fact, when unions are adequately wage aggressive and have strong enough bargaining power, firms may prefer SEB negotiations; however, firms switch their preference to RTM when unions are very strong. Moreover, we show that a conflict of interest between the parties may emerge when unions are sufficiently employment oriented as well as sufficiently wage aggressive and not too strong or too weak in bargaining. Second, we analyse the endogenous choice of the bargaining agenda. We show that a rich plethora of equilibria may occur and new situations of conflict/agreement of interests between the bargaining parties arise in particular when unions are sufficiently wage†aggressive.

Suggested Citation

  • Luciano Fanti & Domenico Buccella, 2018. "Union–Firm Bargaining Agenda Revisited: When Unions Have Distinct Preferences," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(1), pages 35-50, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:buecrs:v:70:y:2018:i:1:p:35-50
    DOI: 10.1111/boer.12113
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/boer.12113
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/boer.12113?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kjell Erik Lommerud & Odd Rune Straume, 2012. "Employment Protection Versus Flexicurity: On Technology Adoption in Unionised Firms," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(1), pages 177-199, March.
    2. John H. Pencavel, 1984. "The Tradeoff Between Wages and Employment in Trade Union Objectives," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 99(2), pages 215-231.
    3. Kornelius Kraft, 2006. "Wage versus efficient bargaining in oligopoly," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(7), pages 595-604.
    4. Luciano Fanti, 2014. "When do firms and unions agree on a monopoly union or an efficient bargaining arrangement?," Discussion Papers 2014/181, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
    5. Michel Dumont & Glenn Rayp & Peter Willemé, 2006. "Does internationalization affect union bargaining power? An empirical study for five EU countries," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 58(1), pages 77-102, January.
    6. Zhao, Laixun, 2001. "Unionization, vertical markets, and the outsourcing of multinationals," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 187-202, October.
    7. Luciano Fanti, 2015. "Union–firm bargaining agenda: right-to-manage or efficient bargaining?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 35(2), pages 936-948.
    8. Brown, James N & Ashenfelter, Orley, 1986. "Testing the Efficiency of Employment Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(3), pages 40-87, June.
    9. Dowrick, Steve & Spencer, Barbara J, 1994. "Union Attitudes to Labor-Saving Innovation: When Are Unions Luddites?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(2), pages 316-344, April.
    10. Alexander, C O & Ledermann, W, 1996. "Are Nash Bargaining Wage Agreements Unique? An Investigation into Bargaining Sets for Firm-Union Negotiations," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 48(2), pages 242-253, April.
    11. repec:bla:scandj:v:87:y:1985:i:2:p:197-225 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Nickell, S J & Andrews, M, 1983. "Unions, Real Wages and Employment in Britain 1951-79," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 35(0), pages 183-206, Supplemen.
    13. Dowrick, Steve, 1990. "The relative profitability of Nash bargaining on the labour demand curve or the contract curve," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 121-125, June.
    14. Elizabeth Schroeder & Victor J. Tremblay, 2014. "Union Bargaining in an Oligopoly Market with Cournot-Bertrand Competition: Welfare and Policy Implications," Economies, MDPI, vol. 2(2), pages 1-14, March.
    15. Petrakis, Emmanuel & Vlassis, Minas, 2000. "Endogenous scope of bargaining in a union-oligopoly model: when will firms and unions bargain over employment?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 261-281, May.
    16. Manning, Alan, 1987. "An Integration of Trade Union Models in a Sequential Bargaining Framework," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 97(385), pages 121-139, March.
    17. Bughin, Jacques, 1999. "The strategic choice of union-oligopoly bargaining agenda," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 17(7), pages 1029-1040, October.
    18. Dobson, Paul W, 1997. "Union-Firm Interaction and the Right to Manage," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(3), pages 213-229, July.
    19. McDonald, Ian M & Solow, Robert M, 1981. "Wage Bargaining and Employment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 896-908, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Domenico Buccella & Luciano Fanti, 2017. "A game-theoretic approach to the choice of union-oligopoly baargaining agenda," Discussion Papers 2017/214, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
    2. Luciano Fanti & Domenico Buccella, 2018. "Social Welfare and Profit-Sharing Rule in a Unionised Duopoly with Profit Tax/Subsidy," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 226(3), pages 59-84, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fanti, Luciano & Buccella, Domenico, 2015. "Bargaining agenda, timing, and entry," MPRA Paper 64089, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Domenico Buccella & Luciano Fanti, 2017. "A game-theoretic approach to the choice of union-oligopoly baargaining agenda," Discussion Papers 2017/214, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
    3. Luciano Fanti & Domenico Buccella, 2019. "When unionisation is profitable for firms in network industries," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(4), pages 711-722, November.
    4. Buccella, Domenico & Fanti, Luciano, 2020. "Do labour union recognition and bargaining deter entry in a network industry? A sequential game model," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    5. Fanti, Luciano & Buccella, Domenico, 2015. "Bargaining agenda in public and private monopoly," MPRA Paper 64184, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Luciano Fanti, 2015. "Union–firm bargaining agenda: right-to-manage or efficient bargaining?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 35(2), pages 936-948.
    7. Fanti Luciano & Buccella Domenico, 2016. "Privatisation or State Ownership When Labour Market is Unionised?," Folia Oeconomica Stetinensia, Sciendo, vol. 16(1), pages 21-36, December.
    8. Luciano Fanti, 2014. "Union-Firm Bargaining agenda: Right-to manage or Efficient Bargaining?," Discussion Papers 2014/182, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
    9. Kopel, Michael & Petrakis, Emmanuel & Ressi, Anna, 2019. "Endogenous scope of firm-union bargaining with vertical pay comparisons," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 39-52.
    10. Luciano Fanti, 2011. "When an efficient bargaining is more "efficient" than a competitive labour market," Discussion Papers 2011/131, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
    11. Claus-Jochen Haake & Thorsten Upmann & Papatya Duman, 2019. "The Decomposability of the Nash Bargaining Solution in Labor Markets," Working Papers CIE 128, Paderborn University, CIE Center for International Economics.
    12. Luciano Fanti, 2011. "When do firms prefer either monopolistic unions or an efficient bargaining?," Discussion Papers 2011/130, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
    13. Claus-Jochen Haake & Thorsten Upmann & Papatya Duman, 2020. "Wage Bargaining and Employment Revisited: Separability and Efficiency in Collective Bargaining," CESifo Working Paper Series 8422, CESifo.
    14. Luciano Fanti & Domenico Buccella, 2017. "Manager‐Union Bargaining Agenda Under Monopoly and with Network Effects," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(6), pages 717-730, September.
    15. António Brandão & Joana Pinho, 2018. "Productivity Shocks in a Union‐Duopoly Model," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 86(6), pages 722-756, December.
    16. Luciano Fanti & Nicola Meccheri, 2017. "Unionization Regimes, Capacity Choice by Firms and Welfare Outcomes," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 85(6), pages 661-681, December.
    17. Luciano Fanti & Domenico Buccella, 2016. "Bargaining Agenda and Entry in a Unionised Model with Network Effects," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 2(1), pages 91-121, March.
    18. Luciano Fanti & Domenico Buccella, 2017. "Bargaining agenda in a unionised monopoly with network effects: when corporate social responsibility may be welfare-reducing," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 34(3), pages 471-489, December.
    19. Carsten Eckel & Hartmut Egger, 2017. "The Dilemma of Labor Unions: Local Objectives vs Global Bargaining," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(3), pages 534-566, August.
    20. Luciano Fanti, 2014. "When do firms and unions agree on a monopoly union or an efficient bargaining arrangement?," Discussion Papers 2014/181, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:buecrs:v:70:y:2018:i:1:p:35-50. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0307-3378 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.