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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Political Science

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Doctoral Dissertations

Theses/Dissertations

Labor unions

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Labor Unions And Economic Inequality In The Wealthy Democracies, Eric Graig Castater Dec 2015

Labor Unions And Economic Inequality In The Wealthy Democracies, Eric Graig Castater

Doctoral Dissertations

Previous research on the determinants of economic inequality in the wealthy democracies has found that differences in the size and constitution of labor unions accounts for much of the cross-national and over time variation in economic inequality. Despite numerous theoretical and empirical reasons to suppose the contrary, most of this research assumes that the union effect on economic inequality is independent of the particular socio-economic and political environment unions are situated within and the types of workers actually unionized. The broad purpose of this dissertation is to push back against these assumptions and examine whether the union effect on economic …


Economic Development Policy And Foreign Direct Investment In The American States: Assessing Their Impact On Private Sector Unionization, Sarah Lynn Young Dec 2015

Economic Development Policy And Foreign Direct Investment In The American States: Assessing Their Impact On Private Sector Unionization, Sarah Lynn Young

Doctoral Dissertations

Most previous research on the role of U.S. state policy in shaping unionization outcomes has emphasized presence or absence of “right-to-work” laws as the key explanatory factor. This dissertation emphasizes the role of state economic development programing in driving the variation in unionization observed across the American states. It also revisits the role that foreign direct investment plays in regard to union power.

I first discuss the variation in private sector unionization levels among the 50 states. I then provide a literature review on two key types of economic development policy, entrepreneurial and locational. I revisit previous scholarship on foreign …