The Effect of Unionism on Productivity in Privately and Publicly Owned Hospitals and Nursing Homes

This paper examines the effect of unions on productivity within a sample of publicly and privately owned hospitals and nursing homes to determine whether public ownership influences union behavior. The results show that the productivity of union contractors is much greater in private than in public projects. Within the sample of private projects, the estimates of the union-nonunion productivity difference are generally positive but very imprecise.