Unions and Economic Performance in Developing Countries: Case Studies from Latin America

Fernando Rios-Avila ()

Economics Working Paper Archive from Levy Economics Institute

Abstract: This paper analyzes the economic impact of unions on productivity in the manufacturing sector across six Latin American countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Mexico, Panama, and Uruguay. Using an augmented Cobb-Douglas production function, the paper finds that unions have positive, but mostly small, effects on productivity, with the exception of Argentina, with a large negative effect, and Bolivia, with no effect. An analysis on profitability shows that, in most cases, the positive productivity effects barely offset higher union compensation, and that unions are negatively related to investment in capital and R and D. Different explanations for these effects are discussed.

Keywords: Unions; Productivity; Profitability; Investment; Latin America; Developing Countries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J50 L1 O54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff, nep-lab and nep-lam
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Journal Article: Unions and Economic Performance in Developing Countries: Case Studies from Latin America (2017)
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