This paper addresses the design of empirical tests to distinguish between two competing explanations of wage and employment determination in unionized labour markets, the labour- demand and efficient-contract models. We argue that most of the tests employed are restrictive, propose an...

Recent research has attempted to explain the impact of changes in union bargaining on the U.K. productivity miracle of the 1980s. A central part of these explanations is the concept of 'effort' or 'working conditions' as an observable component of negotiations. After reviewing the evidence, this...

"Methods for the analysis of linked employer-employee data are not yet available in standard econometrics packages. In this paper, we make the fixed-effects methods developed orginally by Abowd, Kramarz, Margolis and others more accessible, where possible, and show how they can be implemented in...