Does the Logic of Collective Action Explain the Logic of Corporatism?

Michael Wallerstein and Karl Ove Moene
Additional contact information
Michael Wallerstein: Northwestern University 633 Clark Street Evanston, IL 60208 Evanston, Postal: Northwestern University, 633 Clark Street Evanston,, IL 60208 Evanston,, United States

No 15/2003, Memorandum from Oslo University, Department of Economics

Abstract: Mancur Olson's Logic of Collective Action has provided the dominant framework for understanding the impact of encompassing unions and employers confederations on wage-setting in Western Europe. In particular, scholars have drawn upon Olson's writing to descripe corporatism as a means for attaining the collective goods of low unemployment and low inflation in highly unionized labor markets. The strongest impact of corporatist institutions in the labor market, however, was to generate greater wage equality rather than superior macroeconomic performance. To understand the most important impact of corporatist institutions, a new framework that emphasizes the effect of wage-setting institutions on the distribution of wages and salaries is needed. In this paper, we present one component of such a framework with a model that illustrates how both employers and unions might gain by central agreements that reduce wage inequality relative to the equilibrium wage distribution with decentralized wage-setting.

Keywords: Wage setting; unions and employers confederations; corporatist institutions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E24 J31 J51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2002-10-01
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sv.uio.no/econ/english/research/unpubli ... 003/Memo-15-2003.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Does the Logic of Collective Action Explain the Logic of Corporatism? (2003)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:osloec:2003_015

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Memorandum from Oslo University, Department of Economics Department of Economics, University of Oslo, P.O Box 1095 Blindern, N-0317 Oslo, Norway. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mari Strønstad Øverås ().