School board politics, school district size, and the bargaining power of teachers' unions

Heather Rose and Jon Sonstelie ()

Journal of Urban Economics, 2010, vol. 67, issue 3, 438-450

Abstract: This paper presents a public choice theory of the bargaining power of teachers' unions. The theory predicts that the power of the unions rises with the size of a district. The theory is tested by examining the relationship between district size and various bargaining outcomes for a sample of 771 California school districts in 1999-2000. As hypothesized, teachers' salaries rise and the ratio of teachers per pupil falls with increasing district size. The paper also considers several alternative explanations for these results.

Keywords: Collective; bargaining; Salary; schedules (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:juecon:v:67:y:2010:i:3:p:438-450

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