Modeling government behavior in collective bargaining: A test for self-interested bureaucrats

This paper tests for self-interested behavior by local-government bureaucrats engaged in collective bargaining with public employee unions. A theoretical model is developed that shows the effect of Niskanen-style bureaucratic self-interest in the two standard bargaining models: the demand-constrained model and the efficient-bargain model. These predictions are then tested using national cross-section data on unionized police, fire, and sanitation workers. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 1989