EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

The Threat of Unionization, the Use of Debt, and the Preservation of Shareholder Wealth

Stephen Bronars () and Donald R. Deere

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1991, vol. 106, issue 1, 231-254

Abstract: This paper argues that firms use debt to protect the wealth of shareholders from the threat of unionization. Under U. S. labor law the firm cannot prohibit its workers from attempting to form a collective bargaining unit. Debt policy offers a method of reducing the impact of this monopoly right on shareholders. By issuing debt, the firm credibly reduces the funds that are available to a potential union. Empirical evidence that strongly supports this hypothesis is presented.

Date: 1991
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (168)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.2307/2937914 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
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:oup:qjecon:v:106:y:1991:i:1:p:231-254.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

The Quarterly Journal of Economics is currently edited by Robert J. Barro, Lawrence F. Katz, Nathan Nunn, Andrei Shleifer and Stefanie Stantcheva

More articles in The Quarterly Journal of Economics from President and Fellows of Harvard College
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:106:y:1991:i:1:p:231-254.