[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/4953.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The union membership wage premium: an analysis using propensity score matching

Author

Listed:
  • Bryson, Alex
Abstract
This paper estimates the size of the union membership wage premium by comparing wage outcomes for unionised workers with ''matched'' non-unionised workers. The method assumes selection on observables. For this identifying assumption to be plausible, one must be able to control for all characteristics affecting both union status and wages. This requires very informative data. We illustrate the value of the rich data offered by the linked employer-employee Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WERS) 1998 in implementing this methodology. We estimate the union membership premium for the whole private sector, among workers in workplaces where at least some workers are covered by collective bargaining, and in occupations with pay set by collective bargaining. We find a raw 17-25% union premium in gross hourly wages for the private sector in Britain, depending on the sub-group used. However, post-matching this difference falls to between 3% and 6%. This indicates that the higher pay of unionised workers is largely accounted for by their better underlying earnings capacity, which is associated with their individual characteristics, the jobs they do and the workplaces they find themselves in.

Suggested Citation

  • Bryson, Alex, 2002. "The union membership wage premium: an analysis using propensity score matching," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 4953, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:4953
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/4953/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Budd, John W & Na, In-Gang, 2000. "The Union Membership Wage Premium for Employees Covered by Collective Bargaining Agreements," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(4), pages 783-807, October.
    2. Green, Francis, 1988. "The trade union wage gap in Britain: Some new estimates," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 183-187.
    3. Sue Fernie & Helen Gray, 2002. "Its a Family Affair: the Effect of Union Recognition and Human Resource Management on the Provision of Equal Opportunities in the UK," CEP Discussion Papers dp0525, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    4. James J. Heckman & Hidehiko Ichimura & Petra E. Todd, 1997. "Matching As An Econometric Evaluation Estimator: Evidence from Evaluating a Job Training Programme," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 64(4), pages 605-654.
    5. David Metcalf & Kirstine Hansen & Andy Charlwood, 2001. "Unions and the Sword of Justice: Unions and Pay Systems, Pay Inequality, Pay Discrimination and Low Pay," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 176(1), pages 61-75, April.
    6. Alison L. Booth & Mark L. Bryan, 2004. "The Union Membership Wage-Premium Puzzle: Is There a Free Rider Problem?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 57(3), pages 402-421, April.
    7. Henry S. Farber, 2001. "Notes on the Economics of Labor Unions," Working Papers 831, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    8. Blackaby, D. H. & Murphy, P. D. & Sloane, P. J., 1991. "Union membership, collective bargaining coverage and the trade union mark-up for Britain," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 203-208, June.
    9. Blakemore, Arthur E & Hunt, Janet C & Kiker, B F, 1986. "Collective Bargaining and Union Membership Effects on the Wages of Male Youths," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(2), pages 193-211, April.
    10. Andrew Hildreth, 1999. "What Has Happened to the Union Wage Differential in Britain in the 1990s?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 61(1), pages 5-31, February.
    11. Rajeev H. Dehejia & Sadek Wahba, 2002. "Propensity Score-Matching Methods For Nonexperimental Causal Studies," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(1), pages 151-161, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. David Blanchflower & Alex Bryson, 2004. "The Union Wage Premium in the US and the UK," CEP Discussion Papers dp0612, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    2. Koevoets, Wim, 2007. "Union wage premiums in Great Britain: Coverage or membership?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 53-71, January.
    3. Manquilef-Bächler, Alejandra A. & Arulampalam, Wiji & Smith, Jennifer C., 2009. "Differences in Decline: Quantile Regression Analysis of Union Wage Differentials in the United Kingdom, 1991-2003," IZA Discussion Papers 4138, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Alison L. Booth & Mark L. Bryan, 2004. "The Union Membership Wage-Premium Puzzle: Is There a Free Rider Problem?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 57(3), pages 402-421, April.
    5. Sung Jae Jun & Yoonseok Lee & Youngki Shin, 2016. "Treatment Effects With Unobserved Heterogeneity: A Set Identification Approach," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(2), pages 302-311, April.
    6. James Bishop & Iris Chan, 2019. "Is Declining Union Membership Contributing to Low Wages Growth?," RBA Annual Conference Papers acp2019-06, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    7. Thomas Breda, 2010. "Are union representatives badly paid? Evidence from France," Working Papers halshs-00564905, HAL.
    8. Mathieu Bunel & Gilles Raveaud, 2011. "Union Membership does not pay," Working Papers halshs-00868217, HAL.
    9. Mathieu Bunel & Gilles Raveaud, 2012. "Union Membership does not pay: Evidence from recent French Micro Data," Economics Working Paper Archive (University of Rennes & University of Caen) 201232, Center for Research in Economics and Management (CREM), University of Rennes, University of Caen and CNRS.
    10. Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C. & Zhao, Jun, 2020. "Doubly robust difference-in-differences estimators," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 219(1), pages 101-122.
    11. Kube, Roland & von Graevenitz, Kathrine & Löschel, Andreas & Massier, Philipp, 2019. "Do voluntary environmental programs reduce emissions? EMAS in the German manufacturing sector," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(S1).
    12. Pedro H. C. Sant'Anna & Xiaojun Song & Qi Xu, 2022. "Covariate distribution balance via propensity scores," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(6), pages 1093-1120, September.
    13. Iacus, Stefano M. & Porro, Giuseppe, 2007. "Missing data imputation, matching and other applications of random recursive partitioning," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 773-789, October.
    14. Slottje, Daniel J. & Millimet, Daniel L. & Buchanan, Michael J., 2007. "Econometric analysis of copyrights," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 139(2), pages 303-317, August.
    15. Andrews, Martyn J. & Stewart, Mark B. & Swaffield, Joanna K. & Upward, Richard, 1998. "The estimation of union wage differentials and the impact of methodological choices," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 449-474, December.
    16. Hämäläinen, Kari & Ollikainen, Virve, 2004. "Differential Effects of Active Labour Market Programmes in the Early Stages of Young People's Unemployment," Research Reports 115, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    17. Lin, Jenny X. & Lincoln, William F., 2017. "Pirate's treasure," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 235-245.
    18. Fatema, Naureen, 2019. "Can land title reduce low-intensity interhousehold conflict incidences and associated damages in eastern DRC?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 1-1.
    19. Ggombe Kasim Munyegera & Akampumuza Precious, 2018. "The gender gap in firm productivity in Rwanda: Evidence from establishment and household enterprise data," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2018-100, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    20. David McKenzie & John Gibson & Steven Stillman, 2010. "How Important Is Selection? Experimental vs. Non-Experimental Measures of the Income Gains from Migration," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 8(4), pages 913-945, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • R14 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Land Use Patterns
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:4953. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.