IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/niesru/v131y1990i1p57-70.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Economic Effects of Industrial Relations Legislation Since 1979

Author

Listed:
  • William Brown

    (Faculty of Economics and Politics, University of Cambridge.)

  • Sushil Wadhwani

    (Centre for Labour Economics, London School of Economics.)

Abstract

This is the fourth article from members of the CLARE Group to appear in the Review. Future articles will normally appear about twice a year. The Review is pleased to give hospitality to the deliberations of the CLARE Group but is not necessarily in agreement with the views expressed. Members of the CLARE Group are M.J. Artis, A.J.C. Britton, W.A. Brown, C. H. Feinstein, C.A.E. Goodhart, D.A. Hay, J.A. Kay, R.C.O. Matthews, M. H. Miller, P. M. Oppenheimer, M. V. Posner, W.B. Reddaway, J.R. Sargent, M.F-G. Scott, Z.A. Silberston, J.H.B. Tew, J.S. Vickers, S. Wadhwani. The industrial relations legislation of the 1980s has been widely credited with having made a major contribution to Britain's economic performance. This study evaluates its actual impact. The costs to trade unions of strike action have increased, but the legislation has had some perverse effects, not least in encouraging unions to tighten up their own organisation. The economic consequences predicted by the policy makers are investigated by means of a number of econometric studies. They suggest that the expected employment and wage effects did not occur. They also failed to provide improvements in labour productivity. The study offers an alternative explanation of these findings.

Suggested Citation

  • William Brown & Sushil Wadhwani, 1990. "The Economic Effects of Industrial Relations Legislation Since 1979," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 131(1), pages 57-70, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:niesru:v:131:y:1990:i:1:p:57-70
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ner.sagepub.com/content/131/1/57.abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/1905 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Paul Gregg & Stephen Machin, 1991. "Changes in Union Status, Increased Competition and Wage Growth in the 1980s," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 29(4), pages 603-611, December.
    3. Stephen Dunn, 1993. "From Donovan to … Wherever," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 31(2), pages 169-187, June.
    4. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/1905 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Jeremy Waddington, 1992. "Trade Union Membership in Britain, 1980–1987: Unemployment and Restructuring," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 30(2), pages 287-324, June.
    6. P. K. Edwards, 1992. "Industrial Conflict: Themes and Issues in Recent Research," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 30(3), pages 361-404, September.
    7. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/1905 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Odile Chagny & Frédéric Reynès & Henri Sterdyniak, 2002. "The equilibrium rate of unemployment : a theoretical discussion and an empirical evaluation for six OECD countries," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-01027421, HAL.
    9. Stephen Machin, 2024. "Real wages, inequality and living standards," CEP Election Analysis Papers 066, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    10. Mark Wooden & Judith Sloan, 1998. "Industrial Relations Reform and Labour Market Outcomes: A Comparison of Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: Guy Debelle & Jeff Borland (ed.),Unemployment and the Australian Labour Market, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    11. Paul Smith & Gary Morton, 1993. "Union Exclusion and the Decollectivization of Industrial Relations in Contemporary Britain," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 31(1), pages 97-114, March.
    12. Derek Leslie & Yonghao Pu, 1996. "What Caused Rising Earnings Inequality in Britain? Evidence from Time Series, 1970–1993," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 34(1), pages 111-130, March.
    13. Paul Gregg & Anthony Yates, 1991. "Changes in Wage-setting Arrangements and Trade Union Presence in the 1980s," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 29(3), pages 361-376, September.
    14. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/1905 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. David E. Morgan, 1993. "The Nature of Workplace Relations: A Typology of Social Relations and Analysis of Industrial Relations Systems," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 4(1), pages 140-166, June.

    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:sae:niesru:v:131:y:1990:i:1:p:57-70. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/niesruk.html .

    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.