TY  - JOUR
AU  - Dinlersoz,Emin M.
AU  - Greenwood,Jeremy
TI  - The Rise and Fall of Unions in the U.S.
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 18079
PY  - 2012
Y2  - May 2012
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18079
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18079.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Emin M. Dinlersoz
Center for Economic Studies
U.S. Census Bureau
4600 Silver Hill Road
Washington, DC 20233 
E-Mail: emin.m.dinlersoz@census.gov

Jeremy Greenwood
Department of Economics
University of Pennsylvania
3718 Locust Walk
McNeil Building, Rm 160
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6297
Tel: 215/898-1505
Fax: 215/746-2947
E-Mail: do-not-use@jeremygreenwood.net
AB  - Union membership displayed a ∩-shaped pattern over the 20th century, while the distribution of income sketched a ∪. A model of unions is developed to analyze these phenomena. There is a distribution of firms in the economy. Firms hire capital, plus skilled and unskilled labor. Unionization is a costly process. A union decides how many firms to organize and its members' wage rate. Simulation of the developed model establishes that skilled-biased technological change, which affects the productivity of skilled labor relative to unskilled labor, can potentially explain the above facts. Statistical analysis suggests that skill-biased technological change is an important factor in de-unionization.
ER  -