Theory suggests that firms confront a hold-up problem in dealing with workplace unionism: unions will appropriate a portion of the quasi-rents stemming from long-lived capital. As a result, firms may be expected to limit their exposure to rent-seeking by reducing investments. The U.S. evidence...

The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) of 1988 requires that covered firms provide affected employees with 60 days' advance notice of plant closings and large-scale layoffs. The authors use data from the three most recent Displaced Worker Surveys to compare the extent of...

Using data from the 1984 Displaced Worker Survey, the authors model the determinants of time without work following job displacement for a large sample of workers laid off because of plant shutdowns between 1979 and 1984. The major focus of the paper is on the role of advance notification in...

This study examines the relationship between international trade, technology, and exposure to job displacement, using data on displaced workers as well as those at risk of job dislocation, for the two-year sample periods 1986–1987 and 1990–1991. Workers employed in manufacturing industries...

With the passage of the 1988 Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, the United States belatedly joined the large number of industrialized nations that require employers to provide affected workers with advance notice of a plant closing or mass layoff. The authors review the...

German law guaranteeing works councils is not a datum. The thrust of legislation has changed significantly on a number of occasions since 1920. The most recent legal change in the form of the Works Constitution Reform Act marks a controversial swing in favor of works council formation and...

Using quantile regressions and a rich cross section data set for German manufacturing plants, this paper reports that the impact of works councils on labor productivity varies along the conditional distribution of value added per employee. It emerges that the positive and statistically...

In this paper we exploit the longitudinal element of the 1990 and 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Surveys for Britain to investigate the effect of unionism on establishment closings. Contrary to both recent U.S. research and British work using information from the earlier workplace surveys, we...

Empirical investigation of the labor market consequences of employment protection has mushroomed since Lazear's (1990) pioneering study. Having sketched the theoretical background, we chart the course of the modern empirical literature. We focus mainly on dismissals protection, distinguishing...

In a survey published in the British Journal of Industrial Relations, Frege (2002) evaluates research on the German works council from the perspective of several disciplines, including economics. Ultimately, she concludes that economic analysis of the works council has reached a ‘dead end’....