| Project Detail |
Our project proposes to provide new empirical evidence on wage setting. This evidence will enhance our understanding of industrial relations, and of wage inequality. First, we will open up the collective bargaining process between incumbent employees and their employers in both France and the US. We will conduct textual analysis of collective bargaining agreements. We will design two-sided high-frequency surveys to follow the bargaining process within firms (e.g. offer sequences) and to measure the preferences of workers’ and employers’ representatives over various tradeoffs (e.g. wages vs employment). Using quasi-experimental designs, we will study how the identity of the workers’ and employers’ representatives matter for agreement outcomes and we will study overall bargaining efficiency. We will provide the first experimental evidence in industrial relations study through two randomized control trials. In France, we will evaluate the effects of negotiation training programs on collective bargaining outcomes. In the US, we will test for union threat effects in non-unionized workplaces through information experiments. Second, we will leverage the extraordinary opportunities offered by online job boards to open up the wage setting process for external hires. We will complement matched online-search and employment register data with detail firm and worker high-frequency surveys in both France and Sweden. We will provide a thorough analysis of selection into individual bargaining, and of the determinants of bargaining intensity and offers. We will test for bargaining theories using experimental information shocks. We will propose an empirical classification of recruiters based on their willingness to bargain with external hires that can be used to study strategic interactions among heterogenous bargaining firms. Our empirical evidence will guide policymakers in the design of collective bargaining rules and of online job boards. |
