strikes and holdouts in wage bargaining theory and data we develop a private information model of union contract negotiations in which disputes signal a firm s willingness to pay previous models have assumed that all labor disputes take the form of a strike yet a prominent feature of u s collective bargaining is the holdout negotiations often continue without a strike after the contract has expired production continues with workers paid according to the expired contract we analyze the union s decision to strike or hold out and highlight its importance to strike activity strikes are more likely to occur after a drop in the real wage or a decline in unemployment

commitment and compromise in bargaining abstract this paper studies observable and irrevocable commitment in bargaining we investigate when commitment tactics can cause an impasse and when compromise is feasible in the static model in which a player s commitment decision is made simultaneously with his choice of bargaining stance compromise becomes unattainable ellingsen and miettinen 2008 we first analyze a static bargaining model in which the players decide whether to attempt commitment after announcing their demands in contrast to the aforementioned strong result our model accommodates both incompatible commitments and compromises as equilibrium outcomes we then extend our analysis to a dynamic setting it is shown that compromise is possible if the players can alter their demands quickly and the chances of successful commitment are low

does fact finding promote settlement theory and a test nonbinding recommendations such as provided by fact finders are shown to significantly increase voluntary settlements in bargaining theoretically it is unclear whether recommendations will increase settlement rates a recommendation may reduce outcome uncertainty thereby chilling bargaining and increasing dispute rates on the other hand a recommendation may give the parties a focal point around which an agreement is made which of these effects dominates is a question that we consider using theory and data from controlled bargaining experiments the data show the dominance of a focal point effect for suggestions highlighting their potential role in improving dispute settlement procedures

equal pay by gender and by nationality a comparative analysis of switzerland s unequal equal pay policy regimes across time what explains the adoption of two different policies on equal pay by gender epg and by nationality epn in switzerland and why is the liberal litigation based equal pay policy regime set up by the gender equality act of 1996 much less effective than the neocorporatist accompanying measures to the bilateral european union switzerland agreement on free movement of persons adopted in 1999 to ensure equal pay for workers of different national origins the formation of two different policy regimes cannot be explained by different levels of political will equally different varieties of capitalism cannot explain the setup of the two different equal pay policy regimes within the very same country instead our qualitative comparative analysis across time suggests that the differences can be best explained by a particular constellation of attributes namely the use of different policy frames that is anti discrimination in the epg and unfair competition in the epn case and the different setting of interest politics epitomised by the opposite stances adopted by switzerland s employer associations in the two cases

optimal stalling when bargaining this paper analyzes an alternating offer model of bargaining over the sale of an asset in a market such as that for housing in which another agent may come and compete for the right to strike a deal the analysis allows the buyer and seller to have possibly differing views as to how likely such a competition is hence the buyer and the seller disagree about their respective bargaining powers these views adjust to market realizations as the parties learn it is shown that there exists a unique subgame perfect equilibrium which can be explicitly constructed hence conditional on market conditions equilibrium prices and optimal stall lengths that is delay can be found bargaining delay can only occur if there is optimism not pessimism and only if the parties are open to learning as time elapses this delay can occur even for very small levels of optimism and the delay can be for economically significant periods

equal pay as a moving target international perspectives on forty years of addressing the gender pay gap this paper provides an overview of the key factors impacting upon the gender pay gap in the uk europe and australia forty years after the implementation of the first equal pay legislation the pay gap remains a key aspect of the inequalities women face in the labour market while the overall pay gap has tended to fall in many countries over the past forty years it has not closed in some countries it has been stubbornly resistant or has even widened in reviewing the collection of papers that make up this special issue we identify four broad themes with which to group the contributions and draw out the explanations for diverse trends theoretical and conceptual debates legal developments and their impacts wage setting institutions and changing employer demands and newly emerging pay inequalities between and within educational and ethnic groups across the four themes we underline how the trends in the gender pay gap capture the dynamism of inequalities as the market power of different groups and stakeholders changes over times three key dimensions emerge from the papers to provide a framework for future research and policy discourse the relationship between litigation and bargaining strategies the interaction between wage setting institutions and new organisational practices and the increasing and range of diversity or equality strands competing for equal treatment we conclude that progress towards closing the gender pay gap will not be easy will require a collective effort of various actors and will not be quick

delegation and threat in bargaining abstract two principals nations appoint one agent each to bargain over the provision of a public good two institutional set ups are studied each with a different level of authority given to the agents here authority means the right to decide the own side s provision if negotiations break down in equilibrium the principals choose agents with preferences differing from their own the low authority equilibrium pareto dominates with regard to the principals the case of the principals deciding on the provisions simultaneously autarchy the high authority equilibrium is pareto dominated by the low authority equilibrium and it may even be dominated by autarchy journal of economic literatureclassification numbers c71 and c72

wage inequality and varieties of capitalism this article draws on a new data set that enables the authors to compare the distribution of income from employment across oecd countries specifically the article conducts a pooled cross sectional time series analysis of the determinants of wage inequality in sixteen countries from 1973 to 1995 the analysis shows that varieties of capitalism matter the authors find that the qualities that distinguish social market economies from liberal market economies shape the way political and institutional variables influence wage inequality of particular interest to political scientists is the finding that the wage distributive effects of government partisanship are contingent on institutional context union density emerges in the analysis as the single most important factor influencing wage inequality in both institutional contexts

public vs private offers in the market for lemons we study the role of observability in bargaining with correlated values short run buyers sequentially submit offers to one seller when previous offers are observable bargaining is likely to end up in an impasse in contrast when offers are hidden agreement is always reached although with delay

bargaining under incomplete information this paper presents and analyzes a bargaining model of bilateral monopoly under uncertainty under the bargaining rule proposed the buyer and the seller each submit sealed offers that determine whether the good in question is sold and the transfer price the nash equilibrium solution of this bargaining game implies an offer strategy of each party that is monotonic in its own reservation price and depends on its assessment of the opponent s reservation price issues of relative bargaining advantage and efficiency are examined for a number of special cases finally we discuss the appropriateness of the nash solution concept

bargaining with imperfect commitment abstract we study the effect of imperfect commitment in noncooperative two person bargaining games by establishing the reputation for being stubborn a player sometimes commits to her initial demand becoming unable to change her demands or to accept an inferior offer from her opponent when the probability of being stubborn is small the set of equilibria is shown to be small and agreement may be reached immediately despite the possibility of stubbornness a player has greater bargaining power when she is more patient and or is more likely to be stubborn journal of economic literature classification number c78

the mobility of labor and capital a study in international investment and labor flow list of tables acknowledgements introduction 1 foreign investment a neglected variable 2 the use of foreign workers 3 the new immigration 4 the globalization of production implications for labor migration 5 the rise of global cities and the new labor demand 6 the reconcentration of capital in the united states a new investment zone conclusion notes references index

optimal value commitment in bilateral bargaining we study the role of commitment as a source of strategic power in a non cooperative bargaining game two impatient players bargain about the division of a shrinking surplus under a standard bargaining protocol in discrete time with constant recognition probabilities before bargaining a player can commit to some part of the surplus this commitment remains binding until the surplus has shrunk below the amount that the player is committed to intuitively one cannot remain committed to something which has become impossible the model offers insight on the relative importance of proposal power and commitment for the bargaining outcome in a version of the game where both players may simultaneously choose their commitments the equal split emerges from within a range of equilibrium divisions as a focal point which is robust to changes in the model parameters 2012

are litigation and collective bargaining complements or substitutes for achieving gender equality a study of the british equal pay act we present a socio legal case study of the recent equal pay litigation wave in britain which saw an unprecedented increase in the number of claims triggered in part by the entry of no win no fee law firms into this part of the legal services market although the rise in litigation led to greater adversarialism in pay bargaining litigation and collective bargaining mostly operated as complementary mechanisms in advancing an equality agenda although there are limits to the effectiveness of law driven strategies in the face of organisational pressures to canalise and diffuse human rights litigation may be a more potent force for social change than some recent accounts have suggested

commitment and conflict in bilateral bargaining building on crawford 1982 we study a model of bilateral bargaining in which negotiators can make binding commitments at a low positive cost c our primary solution concept is iterated strict dominance if commitment attempts never fail there are three solutions in two solutions all the surplus goes to one player in the third solution there is a high probility of con ict if commitment attempts succeed with probability q 1 the unique solution entails con ict with probability q 2 when c 0 analogous results hold if the requirement of iterated strict dominance is replaced by iterated weak dominance

towards a gendering of the labour market regulation debate gender equality has become an issue in the labour market regulation debate now that evidence suggests that regulation is not always a barrier to good employment performance recent contributions have focused on its impact in exacerbating within workforce inequalities including gender inequality this article reveals that the evidence supporting this proposition is thin and inconclusive and questions the search for a cross national relationship between regulations and gender this approach leaves out of consideration the differences in institutional interactions in specific national contexts and the differences in the institution of gender across time and space this critique is developed through more detailed and context specific analyses of interactions between gender and six areas of labour market regulation the article concludes by arguing that simply introducing a general gender variable into non gendered analyses of labour markets misleads more than informs and distracts from the development of regulations to promote gender equality copyright the author 2011 published by oxford university press on behalf of the cambridge political economy society all rights reserved oxford university press

capital investments and price agreements in semicollusive markets we consider a semicollusive market where firms compete in a long run variable such as investment in capital or capacity and collude with respect to a short run variable such as price or market shares our concern is with the potential destabilizing effect of the long run competition on the short run collusion we show that under a certain refinement of the equilibrium the set of equilibria is reduced to include just the one in which the collusive agreement is stable we then lend some support to the phenomenon of an inverse association between advertising and competition by investigating the conditions under which overcapitalization occurs in the above equilibrium

the 40 year pursuit of equal pay a case of constantly moving goalposts progress towards equal pay is elusive this article reviews debates on and prescribed remedies for gender pay equality over the past 40 years of equal pay policy it looks at pay from four perspectives the economic the sociological the institutional and the organisational and explores how and why once an apparent remedy for unequal pay is pursued the goalposts tend to shift the argument is made that the difficulties in securing long term progress may be attributed to a number of factors including the multifaceted nature of pay as a social phenomenon the challenge of pursuing social objectives in a rapidly changing and fragmenting environment the need for political will not technical solutions to achieve redistribution and the potential for gender inequalities to re emerge in new forms

understanding the variations of unions litigation strategies to promote equal pay reflection on the british case despite their traditional mistrust of the use of the law and their uneasy relationship with the concept of equality british trade unions have used the law in various ways in order to advance both gender and pay equality since 1970 some trade unionists have been making use of european legislation to improve legal norms and build a strong body of case law they have developed legal expertise and detailed knowledge of the practicalities of the law and have supported numerous claims however this use of litigation has not developed consistently over time and across unions litigation has been quite controversial within the trade union movement this article seeks to investigate what are the conditions under which some trade unionists have decided to rely upon litigation to further their female members interests depending on the time period the article emphasises the crucial role these local trade unionists have played in the development of equal pay litigation the paper builds on a developmental approach that differentiates several stages or phases in which union s litigation strategies for equal pay figure differently

excess capacity sunk costs and collusion a non cooperative bargaining game abstract this paper models competition among firms which operate at excess capacity as a non cooperative bargaining game it is shown that provided sunk costs are sufficiently high collusion among firms will ensue this result has been employed to provide a non traditional interpretation of both price and non price competition in the european car market in recent years

on the nash bargaining solution with noise abstract suppose two parties have to share a surplus of random size each of the two can either commit to a demand prior to the realization of the surplus as in the nash demand game or remain silent and wait until the surplus was observed adding the strategy to wait results in two strict equilibria in each of which one player takes almost the whole surplus provided uncertainty is small if commitments concern only who makes the first offer the more balanced nash bargaining solution is approximately restored in all cases commitment occurs in equilibrium despite the risk of breakdown of negotiations

regulating innovative activity abstract without spillovers and under the winner take all hypothesis there is overinvestment in r d in a non cooperative equilibrium due to duplication of effort we show that a public firm can represent an effective instrument in the hands of a policymaker to mitigate such a problem in particular it is proved that in a mixed duopoly i each firm invests less than in a private duopoly and ii although the expected time of innovation is postponed social welfare is higher than in a private duopoly