@techreport{NBERw7229,
 title = "Union Success in Representation Elections: Why Does Unit Size Matter?",
 author = "Henry S. Farber",
 institution = "National Bureau of Economic Research",
 type = "Working Paper",
 series = "Working Paper Series",
 number = "7229",
 year = "1999",
 month = "July",
 URL = "http://www.nber.org/papers/w7229",
 abstract = {I establish four facts regarding the pattern of NLRB supervised representation election activity over the past 45 years: 1) the quantity of election activity has fallen sharply and discontinuously since the mid-70's after increasing between the mid-1950's and the mid-1970's; 2) union success in elections held has declined less sharply, though continuously, over the entire period;  3) it has always been the case that unions have been less likely to win NLRB-supervised representation elections in large units than in small units; and 4) the size-gap in union success rates has widened substantially over the last forty years.  I develop a simple optimizing model of the union decision to hold a representation election that can account for the first three facts.  I provide a pair of competing explanations for the fourth fact: one based on differential behavior by employers of different sizes and one purely statistical.  I then develop and estimate three empirical models of election outcomes using data on NLRB elections over the 1952-98 time period in order to determine whether the simple statistical model can account for the size pattern of union win rates over time.  I conclude that systematic union selection of targets for organization combined with the purely statistical factors can largely account for observed patterns.},
}