Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/99006 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 8240
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This paper studies the effects of nursing home unionization on numerous labor, establishment, and consumer outcomes using a regression discontinuity design. We find negative effects of unionization on staffing levels and no decline in care quality, suggesting positive labor productivity effects. Some evidence suggests that nursing homes in less competitive local product markets and those with lower union density at the time of election experienced stronger union employment effects. Unionization appears to raise wages for a given worker while also shifting the composition of the workforce away from higher-earning workers. By combining credible identification of union effects, a comprehensive set of outcomes over time with measures of market-level characteristics, this study generates some of the best evidence available on many controversial questions in the economics of unions. Furthermore, it generates evidence from the service sector, which has grown in importance and where evidence has been thin.
Subjects: 
trade union
nursing homes
labor productivity
regression discontinuity
collective bargaining
health care quality
JEL: 
J0
J5
D2
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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