Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/105511 
Year of Publication: 
1998
Series/Report no.: 
Department of Economics Discussion Paper No. 9805
Publisher: 
University of Kent, Department of Economics, Canterbury
Abstract: 
The empirical literature on the impact of unions on wages has stressed two major conclusions. Firstly, unionised workers earn a wage premium when compared to comparable nonunionised workers. Secondly, the dispersion of wages within the union sector is lower than in the nonunion sector. We examine the validity of these findings in the context of a developing country labour market. Our results show that unionism does create a positive wage differential for male, semi-skilled workers with formal labour contracts in Brazilian manufacturing, and that, contrary to the common finding in the existing literature, wage dispersion is greater in the union sector. We show that these findings can be explained by the greater variance in the characteristics of unionised workers, the vulnerability of nonunionised workers to market conditions, and the structure of wage bargaining.
Subjects: 
Union power
union wage differential
wage dispersion
Brazil
JEL: 
J31
J51
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
85.5 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.