This Paper analyses the interaction between a common monetary policy and differentiated labour market institutions. We develop a model of a two country monetary union. In each country, labour market institutions are distinguished by the degree of centralization in wage bargaining. In each...

Widespread concern over real effects of EMU is consistent with new Keynesian approaches to macroeconomic fluctuations, but more difficult to reconcile with a real business cycle (RBC) paradigm. Using a model with frictions as a point of departure, I speculate that nominal price rigidity in...

This paper examines the evidence that rapid upgrading of the skill structure in recent years was driven by technological change. Four countries are examined who have had different wage inequality and unemployment trends – Denmark, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. The analysis...

In this paper, we develop a dynamic model of firm-level bargaining, along the lines of Manning (1993). In this context, we provide a firm level wage equation that explicitly accounts for firm heterogeneity. This wage equation explains inter-firm wage differentials by differences in labour...

Economists have, at least since Olson (1965), suggested that there is a free rider problem associated with labour union membership. The reason is that union-set wages are available to all workers covered by unions irrespective of whether or not they are union members, and - given that there are...

This paper analyses the decision by a firm over whether or not to recognize unions (and therefore enter the bargaining process) in order to gain market power in unionized markets. We show that union power coupled with the nature of the union-firm bargaining process - i.e. scope and structure -...

This paper develops a model of a small open economy that produces an export good with domestic labour and imported energy and is stuck in an unemployment situation resulting from an excessive fixed net-of-tax wage rate. We study a revenue-neutral green tax reform that substitutes energy for wage...

Most treatments of the Great Depression have focused on its onset and its aftermath. In contrast, we take a unified view of the interwar period. We look at the slide into and the emergence from the 1920-21 recession and the roaring 1920s boom, as well as the slide into the Great Depression after...

This paper proposes a conceptual framework to investigate the effects of central bank independence, of the degree of centralization of wage bargaining and of the interaction between those institutional variables, on real wages, unemployment and inflation. The labour market is characterized by...

We examine how a merger affects wages of unionized labour and, in turn, the profitability of a merger under Cournot competition in differentiated products. If unions are plant-specific, we find that a merger is more profitable than in a corresponding model with exogenous wages. In contrast to...