Gender & Trade Unions Database: A Basis for Change?

Trade unions and development

Trade Unions in Germany

Currency unions: which effects for trade?

Our paper provides a theoretical analysis of the potential trade implications of a currency union focusing on the crucial role of economic dissimilarities among countries. Modeling the adoption of a common currency as the elimination of transaction costs on international trade, we show that a currency union enhances bilateral trade among members while it reduces bilateral trade between members ...

How Trade Unions Increase Welfare

Historically, worker movements have played a crucial role in making workplaces safer. Firms traditionally oppose better health standards. According to our interpretation, workplace safety is costly for firms but increases the average health of workers and thereby the aggregate labour supply. A laissez-faire approach in which firms set safety standards is suboptimal as workers are not fully info...

Trade unions’ objectives and inflation

Important results recently achieved in games between trade unions and central banks rest on the assumption that workers’ organisations are interested, besides real wages and employment, in inflation per se. This hypothesis is crucial because: (i) the results are not robust to its removal; (ii) the justifications provided to support it are not without problems. The paper raises the issue, critic...