Volume 33, Number 1 (Winter) 1998: Symposium on Microeconomic Methods
Hirsch, Barry T., and Edward J. Schumacher. 1998. "Unions, Wages, and Skills." Journal of Human Resources 33(1): 201-219.
Studies uniformly conclude that union wage effects are largest for
workers with low measured skills. Longitudinal analysis using 1989/90-1994/95 Current
Population Survey matched panels produces union premium estimates equivalent across skill
groups, following appropriate sample restrictions and control for worker-specific skills.
Evidence from the
National Longitudinal Survey of Youth on aptitude scores confirms that union workers with
high measured skills have relatively low unmeasured skills. Differential selection by
skill class and skill homogeneity in union workplaces results from employer and employee
sorting in response to wage standardization, union organizing where skills are
homogeneous,
and unionized employers reluctance to hire the most as well as least able workers.
Barry T. Hirsch is a professor of economics at Florida State University. Edward J.
Schumacher is an assistant professor of economics at East Carolina University. Helpful
comments were received from Ethel Jones, Philip Rothman, Walter Wessels, two anonymous
referees, and seminar participants at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. David Macpherson
assisted with creation of data sets used in the paper. The data used in this article can
be obtained beginning in May 1998 through February 2001 from Barry Hirsch, Department of
Economics, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306.
© 2002 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
US ISSN 0022-166X