IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/applec/v52y2020i15p1687-1703.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A tale of two unions: divergent platforms and their constituencies

Author

Listed:
  • Jessica Merkle
  • Michelle Phillips

Abstract

The median voter theorem has regularly been used in economics to represent the behaviour of teachers unions. Little empirical work, however, tests whether this framework is a good fit for teachers unions. We examine voting behaviour in union representative elections between the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers and find evidence of divergent constituencies. We investigate whether the median voter explains the outcomes of elections in 1977–1979. If both teachers unions select the platform desired by the median voter, there should be no systematic differences in voter preferences for unions. We find that these unions were fundamentally different and attracted distinct voting coalitions. The main implication of this study is that researchers should consider these two unions, and their effect on districts, as distinct.

Suggested Citation

  • Jessica Merkle & Michelle Phillips, 2020. "A tale of two unions: divergent platforms and their constituencies," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(15), pages 1687-1703, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:52:y:2020:i:15:p:1687-1703
    DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2019.1677851
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00036846.2019.1677851
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00036846.2019.1677851?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    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:taf:applec:v:52:y:2020:i:15:p:1687-1703. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEC20 .

    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.