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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Wage Bargaining With Time-Varying Threats, Peter Cramton, Joseph Tracy Jan 1994

Wage Bargaining With Time-Varying Threats, Peter Cramton, Joseph Tracy

Peter Cramton

We study wage bargaining in which the union is uncertain about the firm's willingness to pay and threat payoffs vary over time. Strike payoffs change over time as replacement workers are hired, as strikers find temporary jobs, and as inventories or strike funds run out. We find that bargaining outcomes are substantially altered if threat payoffs vary. If dispute costs increase in the long-run, then dispute durations are longer, settlement rates are lower, and wages decline more slowly during the short-run (and may even increase). The settlement wage is largely determined from the long-run threat, rather than the short-run threat.


The Determinants Of U.S. Labor Disputes, Peter Cramton, Joseph Tracy Jan 1994

The Determinants Of U.S. Labor Disputes, Peter Cramton, Joseph Tracy

Peter Cramton

We present a bargaining model of union contract negotiations, in which the union decides between two threats: the union can strike or continue to work under the expired contract. The model makes predictions about the level of dispute activity and the form the disputes take. Strike incidence increases as the strike threat becomes more attractive, because of low unemployment or a real wage drop during the prior contract. We test these predictions by estimating logistic models of dispute incidence and dispute composition for U.S. labor contract negotiations from 1970 to 1989. We find empirical support for the model's key predictions, …


Relational Investing And Agency Theory, Peter Cramton, Ian Ayres Jan 1994

Relational Investing And Agency Theory, Peter Cramton, Ian Ayres

Peter Cramton

This Article analyzes how, and when, corporate governance could be improved by utilizing "relational investing." The term relational investing is just coming into vogue and there does not yet seem to be a consensus on what it means. Although the term has been trumpeted on the cover of Business Week, before the Conference on Relational Investing at Columbia University, relatively little legal writing had been published on the subject. For the purposes of this Article, we define relational investing to encompass commitments to buy and hold significant blocks of a corporation's stock. And it is particularly important that the relational …