Spanish trade unions enjoy an uncomfortable mix of high coverage and very low membership base. This state of affairs has arisen primarily because of state support for the collective representation system. Union organisation in terms of the core and its branches and union finances are also heavily influenced by the structure of representation. The limited facts on union membership, organisation ...

Keywords austerity, women workers, union democracy, trade unions, unemployment, labor, racism, social welfare, working class

This paper provides new evidence on the impacts of trade reforms on wages. We first introduce a model of trade that combines a non-competitive wage setting mechanism due to unions with a factor abundance hypothesis. The predictions of the model are then econometrically investigated using Argentine data. Instead of achieving identification by comparing industrial wages before and after one episo...

a r t i c l e i n f o The literature measuring the effects of WTO membership on trade flows has produced remarkably diverse results. Rose (2004) reports a wide range of empirical specifications that produce no WTO effects. Tomz et al. (2007) use Rose's data but include de facto WTO membership, to find positive WTO trade effects. Rose (2005) also produced positive WTO trade effects after account...

The status exchange hypothesis suggests that partners in black/white marriages in the United States trade racial for educational status, indicating strong hierarchical barriers between racial groups. The authors examine trends in status exchange in black/white marriages and cohabitations between 1980 and 2010, a period during which these unions increased from 0.3 percent to 1.5 percent of all y...

The purpose of this paper is to account for the revival of both academic and substantive interest in what had long been seen as an unimportant byway of social policy: the role of social partners, especially trade unions, in the management of national social insurance systems. The answer is found in the budgetary crises facing these systems along with the frequent embedded role of the social par...

The Collective Resource Approach is an innovative Scandinavian approach to the design and implementation of new technologies in the work place. It attempts to empower trade unions and workers at the local level by exploiting the needs of the highly integrated Scandinavian economies to constantly improve their technology. In this paper we discuss the practical impact of the CRA in Scandinavia an...

We examine the interaction between trade in goods and market power in domestic trade and distribution sectors. Theory suggests a linkage between service-sector competition and goods trade, one supported by econometrics involving import patterns of 21 OECD countries. This points to significant linkages between effective market-access conditions for goods and the structure of the service sector. ...

This paper provides new evidence on the impacts of trade reforms on wages. Instead of achieving identification by comparing industrial wages before and after one episode of trade liberalization, our strategy exploits the recent historical record of policy changes adopted by Argentina: from significant protection in the early 1970s, to the first episode of liberalization during the late 1970s, b...

An advantage of monetary union is facilitating trade. After many critiques, Rose’s basic finding is left standing: currency unions have greater trade effects than previously believed. Updated estimates also find an effect of the euro on trade among members that is significant (though mysteriously still only 15%). An argument for retaining monetary independence is asymmetric shocks, i.e., low cy...