Union Effects on Productivity: Evidence from Western U.S. Sawmills

Merwin W. Mitchell and Joe Stone

ILR Review, 1992, vol. 46, issue 1, 135-145

Abstract: The authors conjecture that previous studies have tended to overestimate the productivity of union firms relative to nonunion firms due to inadequate controls for output quality and input usage—important omissions if the higher cost of unionized labor leads to less labor-intensive products and techniques. To avoid those problems, this study examines a fairly standardized commodity, lumber, and controls for detailed product attributes and inputs. An analysis of data from a survey administered by the authors shows that unionized sawmills were between 12% and 21% less productive than nonunionized mills in fiscal year 1986. As predicted, when product quality and raw material usage are not included in the analysis, the estimate of union productivity is biased upward.

Date: 1992
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://ilr.sagepub.com/content/46/1/135.abstract (text/html)

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:sae:ilrrev:v:46:y:1992:i:1:p:135-145

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in ILR Review from Cornell University, ILR School
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().