The Economics of Labor Unions

国际Library of Critical Writings in Economics series

Edited by Alison L. Booth, Professor of Economics, University of Essex, UK and Fellow, CEPR (Centre for Economic Policy Research), UK

This comprehensive collection brings together an impressive range of papers on the economics of labor unions. Some of these are classics, and others are less well known – included because they cover significant but under-researched areas, or because they raise interesting questions that as yet remain unanswered.

‘The two volumes represent an essential collection in all university libraries and are outstanding reference tools of a widely dispersed literature for researchers and students in labour economics and industrial relations (note that many of the included articles are not easily available in the libraries of many South-Eastern Universities and research centres).’
– Darko Marinkovic and Bruno S. Sergi, South-East Europe Review

‘Students of labor markets will welcome this intelligently-chosen compendium of classic papers on the economics of trade unions. This two-volume collection brings together eminent contributions to research over a period of more than fifty years. Here is the place to look for what economists have to say about the role of unions in the determination of productivity, wages, employment, work hours, and a host of other things. It provides a valuable opportunity to take stock of where we are in this class of research and how we arrived here.’
– John Pencavel, Stanford University, US

‘At a time at which unions struggle to redefine themselves, and governments think about the right set of labor market institutions, this collection puts together what economists know about unions. No ideology masquerading as science here. Just all the classics.’
– Olivier Blanchard, MIT, US