Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/144529 
Year of Publication: 
2015
Publisher: 
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft, Kiel und Hamburg
Abstract: 
Motivated by the highly-unionized public sectors, the high public shares in total employment, and the public-sector wage premia observed in Europe, this paper examines the importance of public-sector unions for macroeconomic theory. The model generates cyclical behavior in hours and wages that is consistent with data behavior in an economy with highly-unionized public sector, namely Germany during the period 1970-2007. The union model is an improvement over a model with exogenous public employment. In addition, endogenously-determined public wage and hours add to the distortionary effect of contractionary tax reforms by generating greater tax rate changes, thus producing higher welfare losses.
Subjects: 
public sector labor unions
fiscal policy
public wages
public employment
JEL: 
E62
J51
Document Type: 
Preprint

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