Rules, Coordination and Manipulability Among Arbitrators

Janet Currie

No 3821, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper provides evidence that the variance of arbitrated wage settlements is systematically lower than the variance of wage settlements negotiated without arbitration using a panel of contracts between teachers and school boards in the Canadian province of British Columbia. This finding is interpreted as evidence that arbitrators coordinate their decisions. However, coordination on a rule leaves arbitrators as a group vulnerable to manipulation by coalitions of employers or employees that understand the rule. Because successful manipulation of arbitrators undermines the credibility of the institution, arbitrators as a group have incentives to change their rules from time to time. Evidence is presented that in BC, school boards were more successful than teachers at manipulating arbitrators, and that arbitrators responded by changing their rule.

Date: 1991-08
Note: LS
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published as Journal of Labor Economics, January 1994

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w3821.pdf (application/pdf)

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:nbr:nberwo:3821

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w3821

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().