DP320 Employment Determination in British Industry: Investigations Using Micro-Data

• Stephen Nickell Sushil Wadhwani
1 Jun 1989

This paper derives and then estimates a model of employment where unions and firms bargain over wages and possibly employment, and efficiency wage considerations may be important. It illustrates the difficulties involved in interpreting many existing attempts to discriminate between alternative models. The results (based on over 200 UK firms) suggest that employment is negatively related to the firm's own wage, and some results point to a positive relationship with the alternative wage, such that the implied aggregate employment schedule may even be "perversely" sloped. Various financial factors are also seen to have a significant effect on employment.