School of Economics
UNSW, Sydney 2052
Australia
http://www.economics.unsw.edu.au
Outsourcing and Unionization: From Labor Organizations
to Re-organized Work
Elisabetta Magnani and David Prentice
School of Economics Discussion Paper: 2007/07
The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the
School of Economic at UNSW.
ISSN 1323-8949
ISBN 978 0 7334 2439 7
Outsourcing and Unionization:
From Labor Organizations to Re-organized Work.
Elisabetta Magnani
The University of New South Wales
and
David Prentice
La Trobe University
Abstract.
While many believe unionization has little to gain by recent increases in outsourcing, this question has not been analysed systematically. In this paper, using
a new dataset for US manufacturing from 1973 to 1994, we analyse the e¤ect of
outsourcing on unionization. Instrumental Variables estimation shows outsourcing
contributes to higher quasi-rents and industry employment. We …nd the union wage
premium of substitutable workers is not a¤ected by the extent of outsourcing. However, unionized workers in jobs that are not substitutes of the tasks being outsourced
gain from outsourcing. Finally, we …nd no support for the claim that outsourcing
reduces unionization.
JEL classi…cation codes: J51, J31, J24
1
“The largest employer in America is a temp agency now. So we
have to …gure out how to organize this segment, what the glue is. . . Not
in my lifetime.” A former organizing director of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), cited in
Herzenberg (2000).
Two major institutional changes are occurring under our eyes, namely the rapid
dismantling of work organizations and the evolution of the boundaries of the …rm.
In U.S. private manufacturing the union membership density has more than halved,
dropping from 38.9 to 18.2 percent from 1973 to 1994, and similar though less
dramatic changes have been observed in Europe, Australia and Japan (Blanch‡ower
and Freeman, 1992). Many observers have argued it is market competition that
is mainly responsible for undercutting union labor in the wealthy OECD countries
(Wood, 1994). Employers have contributed to this trend by investing heavily in
avoiding unions (Freeman, 2005; Farber, 1990; Freeman, 1986). Indeed, there is
little doubt that the pressure of the world economy has forced wholesale changes in
the internal organization of the …rm (Piore and Sabel, 1984).
A few of the most used strategies to face the increasing product market competition and the workers’ organizations have been the substantial changes in work rules,
the partial dismantling of internal labor markets with the exclusion of some activities
and workers from the …rm and the remarkable growth in the use of market-mediated
employment arrangements, such as temporary labor and outsourcing (Autor, 2003;
Kochan, Katz and McKersie, 1994). According to this general argument the emergence of ‡exible work organization has hampered union organizing activities. While
the di¤usion of employment arrangements that are mediated through the market
rather than through the …rm (and the unions) poses tough challenges of how best
to organize workers in non-standard employment relationships, there is still very
little understanding of the way outsourcing threatens, if truly it does, the future of
unionism. In a time in which there is a widespread feeling that US unionism needs
additional knowledge to come out with new forms of unionism (Freeman, 2005), this
paper aims to contribute to such a purpose.
2
We analyze if outsourcing is associated with the decline in unionization using a
comprehensive data set for US three-digit manufacturing industries between 1973
and 1994. Because the decline occurred over decades, we require compatible data
available annually over the whole period.1 The data has been used elsewhere to
capture important insights about the evolution of trade unionism (see Magnani and
Prentice, 2003; Magnani and Prentice, 2006). The U.S. manufacturing sector over
the last three decades provides a particularly good case study. Starting from the
late 1960s the US manufacturing sector has witnessed substantial growth in the use
of outsourced labor services, especially compared with total employment (see table
1). While in general outsourcing has grown at a brisk pace in all manufacturing
industries, sizeable di¤erences in outsourcing both across industries and across time
remain and it is such variation that the empirical literature has exploited (e.g.,
Bartel el al., 2005; Magnani, 2006). To many observers the use of outsourced labor
services has greatly contributed to the productivity recovery in US manufacturing
in the late 1980s and 1990s (Siegel, 1995, ten Raa and Wol¤, 2001). These stylized
facts call for an evaluation of the e¤ects of outsourcing on industry quasi-rents, labor
productivity, employment, the union wage premium and unionization.
Some of the key …ndings of our study are the following. Outsourcing has contributed to higher quasi-rents and increased quasi-rents per plant. However it has
not increased quasi-rents per employee because outsourcing has been accompanied
by increased use of industry labor, which, with a visible increase in quasi-rents, has
kept quasi-rents per employee stable. Despite the apparent lack of relationship between outsourcing and quasi-rents per employee, we …nd interesting di¤erences in
the way outsourcing impacts upon the union wage premium of workers with jobs
similar to the task being outsourced and the union wage premium for other workers. While the premium of substitutable workers is not a¤ected by the extent of
outsourcing, we …nd evidence that unionized workers employed in jobs that are not
1
This precludes the use of relatively detailed, but infrequently published data, such as that used
by Bartel et al. (11).
3
substitutes of the tasks being outsourced gain from outsourcing. Finally, a set of
tests on whether there is any negative relationship between unionization and the
extent of outsourcing fails to …nd any support to this hypothesis.
These results drive our main conclusions according to which US manufacturing
unions have misallocated their resistance resources. To be clearer, our results support those views in favor of an an alliance between unionized in-house employees and
external workers (e.g., Hiatt and Jackson, 1997; Cobble, 1991) to share the increase
in quasirents from outsourcing.
I. Labor organizing institutions and reorganized work.
There is widespread belief that from the 1970s the combination of globalization,
increased domestic competition and a more volatile macroeconomic environment has
created a demand by …rms for much greater labor market ‡exibility than during the
postwar boom of the 1950s and 1960s in all major industrialized countries, including
the US, the European nations, Canada and Australia (Abraham, 1996; Segal and
Sullivan, 1997; Blanchard et al. 1995).
Before proceeding, it is worthwhile expanding on what is meant by ‡exibility.
Labor market ‡exibility is a multidimensional concept that in general measures the
ability of the labor markets to rapidly respond and adjust to shocks. In recent times
…rms’ demand for ‡exibility has translated into a demand for new work practices and
patterns, which aim to increase numerical ‡exibility i.e. ease in adjusting numbers
and hours of employees, and functional ‡exibility, i.e. ease in adjusting the tasks
performed by the organization or even individual workers, so to increase productivity while relaxing job security regulation (Osterman, 1999; Kalleberg, 2001). One of
the ways in which …rms have responded to competitive challenges to increase ‡exibility has been by changing the mix of employment arrangements. Tasks that were
previously performed by workers directly hired by the …rm were increasingly done
under contract with …rms in the business service sector and through employment
arrangements that involved temporary workers and outsourcing (Autor, 2003).
4
The extent of the increase in the use of alternative employment arrangements is
evident if we look at the striking performance of the US business service industry
(Standard Industrial Classi…cation code 73) in general, and by the performance of
the Temporary Help Supply industry (SIC 736) in particular (reported in Magnani,
2006, Table xx). Magnani (2006) documents that between 1949 and 1998, the cost
share of purchased services (outsourcing) grows from 4 percent to 12 percent. Interestingly, two studies …nd links between the rise of outsourcing and productivity
growth. First, Siegel (1995) argues that improvements in manufacturing productivity cannot be explained by measurement errors but rather by outsourcing, an
increase in the rate of investment in computers, and unmeasured changes in the
quality of output and the labor force. Similarly, ten Raa and Wol¤ (2001), relate
the recovery of standard TFP growth in manufacturing during the 1980s to an increased use of outsourcing of inputs from service industries as well as to technical
change.
The ability of unions to cash part of these productivity gains depends largely
on whether outsourced labor services and labor services provided by the internal
permanent workforce are substitutes or complements. If there is substitutability
between internal workers and outsourced labor services, outsourcing may a¤ect internal workers’ productivity by acting like a “worker’s discipline device”. Again,
if the two labor inputs are substitutes, outsourcing may raise industry quasi-rents
but it will have a limited impact on the share of rents accruing to union members. In fact it could even be that employers use outsourcing to limit unions’ wage
demands — a variation on the outsourcing to limit labor costs hypothesis often
explored in the literature (Abraham and Taylor, 1996). Kalleberg (2001) reviews
the existing literature to …nd little consensus on the relationship between numerical
and functional ‡exibility strategies …rms have adopted in recent times. According
to Lindbeck and Snower (2001), increased functional ‡exibility and reduced task
specialization among workers within a …rm has gone hand in hand with increased
specialization in production among …rms, a down-sizing process that involves more
5
narrow focus on a …rm’s “core competencies” in production and the outsourcing of
“non-core competencies”.
These two sets of empirical evidence, the ones relating market-mediated employment arrangements to increased manufacturing productivity, and the ones confronting functional and numerical ‡exibility lead us to two overlooked aspects of the
debate. First,to what extent union members (part of the stable component of the
labor force) can bene…t, if at all, from the …rm’s decision to outsource part of its
activities. Second, to what extent unions as institutions are a¤ected, or can a¤ect,
the use and e¤ects of outsourcing.
A. What is Labor Organizations’ Attitude Towards Work Reorganization? An Overview of the Evidence.
As highlighted earlier, one of the characteristics of the previous workplace organization in manufacturing was its high unionization - which has declined considerably
since the 1970s (for a review of this issue see Magnani and Prentice (2003)). Where
workplaces have remained unionized, these changes have posed considerable challenges to trade unions. Although it is not possible to summarize the complex …ndings
of a large literature, it is important to stress that studies on the unions’ reaction to
the introduction of innovative workplace arrangements have greatly contributed to
question the view, prevailing in the industrial relation system since World War II,
according to which “management manages and the union grieves”.2
Much less known is the unions’ attitude towards the reorganization of the workplace that involves the use of market-mediated employment arrangements such as
outsourcing. One approach has focussed on the threat to union power. As Perry
(1997) clearly states, at the macro level the dimension of union power heavily depends on its degree of success in “taking labor out of competition" (from outsourced
labor services). If internal unionized labor services and outsourced labor services
are highly substitutable, the long run e¤ects of outsourcing may be reduced union
wages, particularly if there are reductions in employment as well.
Rather di¤erent is the view that comes from seminal contributions on outsourcing. If we understand outsourcing, as Drucker (1995) and Quinn and Hilmer (1994)
do, as a process of turning over a part or all of those functions (or skills) that fall
outside the organization’s chosen core competencies to an external supplier whose
core competencies and skills are the functions being outsourced, outsourcing involves highly specialized activities. Since cost factors are not the only long term
determinants of outsourcing and given the complementarity existing between core
functions and non-core outsourced functions, unions should be able, at least in the
short-medium run, to cash sizeable shares of the bene…ts from outsourcing. If unions
are rent-extracting institutions, they should favor any change in the internal organization of the …rm that leads to an increase in the quasi-rents produced.
Given the abundance of case studies in which outsourcing has led to legal confrontations between unions and management (reviewed in Miscimarra and Schwartz
2
For instance, the reader is referred to Eaton and Voos (1989) who witness a variety of American
union attitudes to “team production systems”. There is evidence of mainstream unions having to
innovate in contributing to the competitive advantage of the …rms. For instance in the US steel
industry the unions played a key role in the implementations of HPWO work systems (Osterman,
1999; p. 173).
6
(1997)) it is obvious that there is much more at stake in the use of outsourced labor than simple e¢ciency gains at no cost for union members. The issue of how
unions actually bene…t if at all from the productivity gains, re‡ected in increased
quasi-rents, made possible by the reorganization of the …rm towards outsourcing is
the object of investigation of the present study. In the next section we propose a
theoretical framework to think about it.
II. Unionization and Outsourcing: A Theoretical Framework.
In this section we review the unions as rent-extracting institutions framework
of Abowd and Farber (1990) and introduce and analyze the e¤ects of outsourcing.
For an industry with employment, N , and union membership, L, unionization, U , is
the proportion of industry employment that are union members, U = L=N . In the
standard model, unions maximize the share Qh(U ) of industry quasi-rents accruing
to union members less organizing costs, where Q is industry quasi-rents and h(U ),
with 0 < h(U ) < 1, is the function that yields the bargaining power of the union.
Organizing costs are equal to Lg(U; S). The per worker cost of organizing the
industry, g(U; S), depends positively on both unionization U and employer resistance
S.3
The de…nition of industry quasi-rents adopted here is both standard and suitable
for estimation. As in Abowd (1989) and in Abowd and Allain (1996) industry
quasi-rents is expressed as the sum of two items: union members’ and shareholders’
returns. Union members’ returns is the excess of union labor costs over labor costs
using a non-unionized work force, or L(W
w), where W is the bargained wage,
and w is the wage rate received if the workers were not unionized. Shareholders’
returns is de…ned as pro…t (excluding capital costs), [R
WL
w(N
L)]; where
R is total revenues. Thus, as in Abowd (1989) industry quasi-rents are Q = [R
3
Abowd and Farber (1990) do not specify a functional form for h(U ) and g(U; S):They assume
the organization cost function g(U; S) is increasing and convex in U and increasing and concave
in S. Furthermore, they assume that the union bargaining power function h(U ) is increasing and
concave in U . They also assume bargaining between the union and …rm is strongly e¢cient. This
implies that bargaining does not reduce the size of the total surplus i.e. the size of …rm quasi-rents
(Brown and Ashenfelter, 1986).
7
WL
w(N
L)] + L(W
w) = R
wN; the value of revenues minus labor costs
valued at the opportunity cost of a non-unionized worker’s time.4
We now add outsourcing to this framework. Denote O as the share of workers
that are outsourced. Both quasi-rents and organizing costs are assumed to have a
positive relationship with outsourcing. The e¤ect of outsourcing on union bargaining
power will depend on the nature of outsourcing. If there is extensive outsourcing
of substitute workers (which is the usual case considered), union bargaining power
will fall. If complementary workers are outsourced, there may be no e¤ect or may
even increase the bargaining power of complementary workers (if they become more
essential as a result of outsourcing). Formally, we write the problem that unions
faced with outsourcing have to solve as:
max Q(O)h(U; O)
U
N U g(U; S; O)
(1)
A union will have a benevolent attitude towards outsourcing if outsourcing increases quasi-rents without signi…cantly decreasing union strength or increasing organizing costs. Abowd and Farber (1990) show that under certain conditions there
is a positive relationship between unionization and quasi-rents. Thus, by increasing
quasi-rents, outsourcing may indirectly provide trade unions with growth opportunities.
Obviously a very di¤erent case arises if outsourcing increases industry quasi-rents
but also reduces union bargaining power, h(U; O), because outsourcing represents
an implicit threat to regular, full time employees or because it increases organizing
costs, reducing unionization. Union bargaining power may decrease because of the
implicit (or explicit) threat to substitute away from regular full-time employees
towards outsourced workers. Organizing costs may rise, as the workforce becomes
more dispersed, less localized and less full-time. In these cases while outsourcing
4
Obviously the time dimension here is important, since in the very short run, most normal
returns are quasi-rents. In other words, quasi-rents include the normal competitive return to the
…xed assets in an industry if, as in the short/medium run, employers do not have the chance
to protect the normal return component of the quasi-rents by transferring the assets to other
industries. This is the time frame assumed in the analysis that follows as well as in Abowd (1989)
and Abowd and Allain (1996).
8
may increase the potential gains to union members by increasing quasi-rents Q, the
ex-post realized gains L(W
w) are reduced because of a smaller L or W or both. To
see the e¤ect on W , we start from the de…nition of the share of quasi-rents accruing
to the union, h(U; O)Q = L(W
Q=R
w), and employing the de…nition of quasi-rents,
wN; the union wage W set by e¢cient bargaining can be written as:
W = w + h(U; O)
R
wN
L
(2)
By (2) W increases with the bargaining power h(U; O); lowering the share of quasirents accruing to the employer. Expression (2) makes it clear that if outsourcing
su¢ciently reduces unions’ bargaining power, larger quasi-rents, through greater
revenue or larger overall employment, may not lead to a higher union wage rate.
Finally, as has been highlighted in the theoretical literature on e¢cient bargaining (e.g. McDonald and Solow (1981)) unions can also be concerned about
employment. While we will not formally consider this possibility, it is also possible
that unions may wish to negotiate for higher employment as well as higher wages.
A. A Few Testable Empirical Implications on the Relationship between
Outsourcing and Unionization.
The review of the literature and the model of the relationship between unionization, outsourcing and the outcomes of union bargaining suggests …ve relationships
to investigate.
First, as any positive e¤ects on unionization depend on outsourcing increasing
quasi-rents, we …rst test if there is any signi…cant positive relationship between the
two. Assuming that outsourcing has no direct impact on the price of output p or
on the non-unionized wage w, outsourcing may increase quasi-rents by improving
productivity resulting in increased output, Y . Employment, N , may rise or fall
depending on whether the outsourced labor inputs are complements or substitutes
for in-house labor services. In either case, quasi-rents will rise. The reduced form
equation determining industry quasi-rents, denoted Q, is summarized below:
Q = f (px ; w; C; T; O)
9
(3)
where, as suggested by the de…nition of quasi rents, we include px is the price of
other inputs and w is the wage rate received if the workers were not unionized.
Furthermore, economic theory suggests that quasi-rents also vary with competition,
measured by the set of variables C, technological change over time, measured by the
set of variables T , and outsourcing, measured by O.5 We also consider two more
measures of quasi-rents — quasi-rents per plant and quasi-rents per employee. While
both of these variables are functions of the same variables as industry quasi-rents,
each enables focussing on a particular aspect of the problem. Quasi-rents per plant
is probably a more appropriate measure for analyzing the e¤ect of competition,
whereas quasi-rents per employee, qe , is a more appropriate measure of what is
bargainable for the union.
Second, to analyze the origins of any e¤ect of outsourcing on quasi-rents we analyze the relationships between outsourcing, productivity and employment. Average
labor product, AP , is modeled, as suggested by economic theory, as a function of
capital, K, the non-unionized wage and the price of other inputs. As a substantial
empirical literature suggests productivity is in‡uenced by unionization, U , competition and technology so we include controls for these e¤ects. The reduced form
equation determining average product is summarized below:
AP = f (K; w; px ; U; C; T; O)
(4)
Similarly economic theory and previous empirical work suggests employment, N , is
related to capital, the price of output and inputs, including the non-union wage,
as well as unionization, competition and technology, so a similar reduced form is
summarized below:
N = f (K; p; w; px ; U; C; T; O)
(5)
where p is the output price. We will test if outsourcing is signi…cantly positively
correlated with productivity or not, and whether there is a signi…cant negative or
5
The variables we use to measure competition, technological change and outsourcing are discussed in detail in the data section.
10
positive relationship with employment. This e¤ect of outsourcing on the industry
employment level should not be apparent if outsourcing reduces unions’ power for
reasons other than the substitutability hypothesis.
In addition, we examine the e¤ects of outsourcing on unionization. First, we consider the union wage premium (W
w)=w. If outsourcing does not a¤ect bargaining
power, then the wage premium will be a function of quasi-rents per employee but
not outsourcing. In addition, we also include measures of unionization, and competition, to control for the e¤ects these variables have on bargaining power. Note that
if outsourcing has led to a reduction in unionization through increased organizing
costs, then this will be picked up through the unionization variable. The general
relationship is summarized below:
(
W
w
w
) = f (qe ; U; C; O)
(6)
where qe is quasi-rents per employee. Finally, we examine if changes in outsourcing
are directly correlated with unionization. To test this, we follow Magnani and Prentice (2003) and model unionization as a function of worker characteristics, domestic
and international competition, quasi-rents per employee, technological change, with
the addition of a measure of outsourcing. This reduced form relationship is summarized below:
U = f (W C; C; qe ; T; O)
(7)
where W C is a set of worker characteristics identi…ed in the literature as being
correlated with unionization.
To summarize, the results of regressions based on equations (3) - (7) will provide
some indication of the e¤ects outsourcing is having on the returns to unionization.
The results of regression (3) -(5) suggest whether and how outsourcing is increasing
the size of the pie to be bargained over - a source of a potential gain for the union.
The results of regressions based on equation (6) and (7) suggest whether unions have
been successful in bargaining for improvements in wages as a result of (or despite)
outsourcing. The results of regression (7) indicate whether there is a direct rela11
tionship between unionization and outsourcing, controlling for other determinants
of unionization.
III. The Data and Identi…cation Issues.
The dataset for this paper is an unbalanced panel of three-digit US manufacturing
industries observed annually from 1973 to 1994 (excluding 1981-1982). It is collected
by the authors, mostly from …ve sources: (1) NBER Productivity Database (Bartelsman and Gray, 1996); (2) Current Population Survey (CPS); (3) Employment and
Earnings (Bureau of Labor Statistics, various); (4) County Business Patterns (U.S.
Census Bureau) and (5) KLEMS data set (Bureau of Labor Statistics). The reader
is referred to Magnani and Prentice (2003)) and Magnani and Prentice (2006) for
details on the data. Here su¢ce to say that no other dataset exists that would enable an analysis of outsourcing and unionization across a wide set of manufacturing
industries. For this purpose we have construct a single compatible data set from different sources using di¤erent industry classi…cation schemes that change over time.
These problems are overcome in two steps. First, a single encompassing three-digit
industry classi…cation - the Extended Census Industry Classi…cation (ECIC) - is
constructed. Then, we construct, using concordances, aggregates compatible with
the ECIC for variables over time across all sources, wherever possible.6 With the
three-digit ECIC as the unit of observation, we obtain an unbalanced panel of 1439
observations for roughly 72 industries per year from 1973 to 1980 and 1983 to 1994.
All variables used are de…ned, with descriptive statistics in Table 3. In what follows
we discuss the construction of dependant variables and explanatory variables.
A. Dependant Variables.
In the various stages of the regression analysis we have used three sets of dependent variables that were not immediately available, or easily calculable, from
the data collected, namely industry quasi-rents, union wage premiums and unionization.
6
For more details on the construction on the dataset see Appendix A of Magnani and Prentice
(2003) or Magnani and Prentice (2001).
12
Industry Quasi-Rents.
We use three versions of the quasi-rents variable. First, we estimate industry
quasi-rents, QUASI-RENTS jt , for industry j at time t as follows:
QU ASI REN T Sjt =
P rice Shipments-(Cost of M aterials and Energy) (8)
Employment w
bjt
where w
cjt is the estimated non-union wage of the workers employed in industry j
at time t:7 All of the variables used to calculate industry quasi-rents except w;
b are
obtained from the NBER Manufacturing Productivity Database (Bartelsman et al.,
1996). We obtain the estimated industry speci…c non-union wage w
b by running
hourly wage regressions using CPS data of personal characteristics for all workers
(both union and non-union members) Xit and a union coverage dummy variable
(coverage)it :
log(hourly wage)it = BXit + C(coverage)it + error termit
(9)
where B and C are vectors of coe¢cients of variables that refer to individual i at time
t.8 We follow Card (1996) in the choice of the relevant individual speci…c variables
Xit ; which are race, gender, education (completed some college, did not complete
high school), experience, experience squared (some of these are described in more
detail below). We also add occupational dummy variables among the explanatory
variables as the empirical literature shows occupation has a large impact on unionb
nonunion wage di¤erentials (Lewis, 1986).9 The vector of estimated coe¢cients B
for personal characteristics is used to predict individual speci…c non-union wages
b ijt )
w
bijt = exp(BX
(10)
The estimated w
bijt is the wage individual i employed in industry j at time t would
earn were trade unions absent. We compute average non-union wages, by industry,
7
Note that this de…nition is consistent with Abowd (1989) and with the …rst de…nition of quasirents introduced by Abowd and Allain (1996).
8
Reported hourly wages are used in the majority of cases. When the CPS individual does not
report this, the ratio between weekly earnings and average weekly hours is used.
9
Dummy variables for industry of employment are not included in the wage regression. This
choice is motivated by the fact that industry premiums may re‡ect rents and we aim to estimate
opportunity cost wages net of rents.
13
using the estimated individual w
bijt of workers employed in each three-digit industry,
weighted by their individual CPS weights.
We estimate QUASI-RENTS PER PLANT by dividing QUASI-RENTS by NUMBER OF PLANTS. QUASI-RENTS PER EMPLOYEE, is estimated by dividing
QUASI-RENTS by 10,000*EMPLOYMENT.
Union Wage Premium.
This is constructed as follows:
UNION WAGE PREMIUM jt =
Wjt w
bjt
w
bjt
(11)
where Wj is the actual hourly union wage in industry j, calculated from the hourly
wages reported for all workers covered by a union agreement from the CPS and
w
bj is the estimated non-union wage for the workers covered by union agreement in
industry j as described in the previous subsection. Individual CPS weights are again
used to compute industry average rates from individual rates.
We also re-estimate separate union wage premiums, following the same steps, for
two groups of workers, divided by occupation. The …rst group, referred to as the
substitute workers, are those working in manufacturing whose occupations involve
performing tasks similar to those that are outsourced such as cleaners and personal
and protective service workers. The second group, referred to as the complement
workers, are workers in all other occupations.10 As before industry average rates for
each group are calculated for each year. Estimates based on less than 30 observations
are discarded - which means about 200 industry-year combinations are lost - with
more lost before 1983.
Unionization.
The unionization rate variable in industry j at time t, UNIONIZATIONjt , is
de…ned as the ratio of the number of workers covered by a trade union agreement
over the total industry work force. This variable, and worker characteristics, are
calculated from the CPS. We use the outgoing rotations for 1983-1994 and the May
CPS for 1973-1980. The year 1981 is excluded because union status was asked
10
The two digit occupations classi…ed as substitute workers are listed in the Appendix.
14
only of a CPS May quarter sample. Furthermore, 1982 is also excluded because
there were no union status questions in the CPS that year. To compute both the
numerator and denominator of this ratio we use CPS individual weights (weightijt )
for each individual i employed in industry j at time t. Thus
U N ION IZAT IONjt =
P
ijt
i (coverage)
P
i
weightijt
weightijt
(12)
where (coverage)ijt is a dummy variable that takes value one if individual i employed
in industry j at time t is covered by union contract, and zero otherwise. Because
the NBER CPS extract only includes the union coverage variable from 1978 (though
collected from 1977), we estimate unionization for 1973 to 1977 by using the ratio of
union coverage to union membership in 1978 to scale up annual union membership
rates, estimated from CPS data.11
B. The Explanatory Variables.
In this subsection, we discuss four sets of explanatory variables that require additional details on their construction: (1) Outsourcing; (2) Measures of Domestic and
International Competition; (3) Technological Change; (4) Worker Characteristics.
Outsourcing.
Data on purchased services by manufacturing industries are drawn from the US
Bureau of Labor Statistics KLEMS dataset. Outsourced services fall into one of
the following categories: Communication, Finance and Insurance, Real Estate and
Rental, Personal and Repair Services, excluding autos, Business Services, Auto Repair and Services, Amusements, Medical and Education Services, Government Enterprises. For the US Information Technology has historically been the most important input acquired (OECD, 1986). The empirical speci…cation uses a industry-level
panel data set of 2-digit manufacturing industries (SIC 20–39) for which outsourced
services are known between 1949 and 1999. The speci…c measure of outsourcing we
use is the ratio of the value of purchased services to the value of output, denoted
11
There are very small di¤erences in between the unionization rates published by the BLS and
ours due to slight di¤erences in sampling method (we select based on a valid union coverage
variable). A table comparing the two over 1983-1997 is available from the authors upon request.
15
OUTSOURCING SHARE. By using this outsourcing measure merged with 3-digit
manufacturing dependent variables, it is reasonable to assume that workers treat
these measures of outsourcing as measures of risk of outsourcing rather than as
resulting from endogenously determined strategies. This allows us to solve an important methodological di¢culty often encountered in this type of exercises, namely
the issue of how to identify the direction of causation between union density and
outsourcing.
Measures of Competition.
To measure the extent of domestic competition, we use the industry-speci…c
number of plants, NUMBER OF PLANTS, available on an annual basis from the
County Business Patterns (coded following the SIC). Economic theory suggests that
one reason for oligopoly is economies of scale. This suggests an inverse relationship
between NUMBER OF PLANTS and concentration and indeed the two measures
are negatively correlated (with
-0.45 for each year in which the concentration
ratios are calculated).
The extent of foreign competition is estimated using trade penetration variables,
calculated from the NBER Trade database. The industry-speci…c import penetration variable, IMPORT SHARE, is de…ned as the ratio of imports over the sum
of imports and domestic production by industry. The export variable, EXPORT
SHARE, is the ratio between export and domestic production (Feenstra, 1996; Feenstra, 1997).
Technological Change.
We use the share of scientists and engineers over total industry employment,
Share of scientists, to proxy for technological change. Berman, Bound and Machin
(1998) report strong evidence of pervasive skill-biased technological change in OECD
countries. Table 3 con…rms this view for the US manufacturing. Between 1973 and
1994 the share of scientists has risen by 109%. To compute the variable, SHARE
OF SCIENTISTS, over the industry workforce, we use CPS weighted data on occupation.
16
Worker Characteristics.
CPS data and weights are used to estimate the share of black workers employed in
industry j at time t, SHARE OF BLACK, the average age of the industry work force,
AVERAGE AGE, the share of female employees, SHARE OF WOMEN, the share of
employees younger than 30, SHARE OF YOUNG, the share of employees older than
40, SHARE OF OLD, the share of the work force with a college degree, SHARE
WITH COLLEGE, the share of high school dropouts, SHARE WITH < HIGH
SCHOOL. Table 3 demonstrates that the main changes in worker characteristics
are the increased share of female employees, the increased share of college educated
workers and a slight rise in average age, which re‡ects the rise in the number of
middle aged workers.
C. Identi…cation Issues.
To ensure identi…cation of our empirical speci…cations, we address three issues.
First, in all speci…cations we attempt to control for two sources of unobservable
variables - those that are industry speci…c (which we control through …xed e¤ects),
and those that vary over time (using time dummies). To assess the role these
play in identi…cation, for each equation we estimated four speci…cations, namely
Speci…cation I (Explanatory variables only); Speci…cation II (Explanatory variables
and industry dummy variables); Speci…cation III (Explanatory variables and year
dummy variables); Speci…cation IV (Explanatory variables and year and industry
dummy variables).
In the end we report only the full set of speci…cations for the unionization regressions, but complete sets of results are available from the authors on request.
All speci…cations in all tables are estimated using instrumental variables regression.
Note that the regression on UNIONIZATION is estimated using weights so to yield
an estimate for the average worker. Industry employment weights are calculated
using CPS earnings weights for all individuals allocated to each industry.
Secondly, because the extent of outsourcing is likely to be correlated with unob-
17
servable factors that determine quasi-rents, employment, and possibly, unionization
and the union wage premium, we use the outsourcing share at the two-digit rather
than the three digit level. Industry wide outsourcing will be correlated with the
extent of outsourcing in a particular industry but less likely to be correlated with
unobservable shocks to the particular industry.
Thirdly, quasi-rents are unlikely to be exogenous when used in the unionization
and union wage premium regressions (equations (6) and (7)). In addition, in equation (6), unobservable determinants of the wage premium are likely to be correlated
with the extent of unionization. Furthermore, in the employment and productivity regressions (equations (4) and (5)), both UNIONIZATION and ESTIMATED
NON-UNION WAGE are also likely to be correlated with unobservable shocks to
textitEMPLOYMENT and PRODUCTIVITY. We deal with each of these issues by
selecting appropriate instruments. We use the following instruments for quasi-rents:
the prices of raw materials, energy and non-union labor and, following Ramey (1989),
a set of instruments to capture macroeconomic driven ‡uctuations in rents: the real
crude petroleum price, a set of political dummy variables (Republican government,
…rst two years of government let by Democrats, …rst two years of government led by
Republicans), real defense expenditure and real defense contracts. In addition we
use import and export shares interacting with the prices of energy, raw materials and
non-union labor. The same set of instruments, average worker characteristics, are
used for instrumenting for UNIONIZATION in the Union wage premium regression
and the estimated non-union wage in the employment and productivity regressions.
IV. Results and Analysis.
Table 3, which is constructed using the data we use for the analysis, reports a set
of striking changes a¤ecting the US manufacturing sector from 1973 to 1994. First,
there is the well known decline of unionization, from 46% to 20%. Simultaneously,
the outsourcing share has risen from 7% in 1973 to 10% in 1994. The data also suggests striking increases in the extent of both domestic and international competition,
18
with a 37% increase in the number of plants, a 146% increase in the import share
and a 97% increase in the export share. Despite increased competition, quasi-rents
per employee have increased substantially - especially during 1983-1994, a fact that
may be due to improved productivity growth after the 1970s.12 . Employment has
remained roughly constant over this period, but, strikingly, there has been an increase in the unionization premium. With a substantial decline in the unionization
rate, this could re‡ect either that only the strongest unions have survived over this
period, or a re‡ection of the reorientation of unions to contribute to competitive
advantage as suggested in Section II.
A. Did Outsourcing Increase Quasi-rents?
To address this question, we run three versions of equation (3) as described in
section III.A. Selected results for the quasi-rents, quasi-rents per plant and quasirents per employee regressions are reported in columns two, three and four of Table
4, respectively. First, we review the e¤ects of the controls and then discuss the
relationship between outsourcing and the di¤erent measures of quasi-rents.
Across all three equations, the price variables and interactive terms are mostly
insigni…cantly di¤erent from zero, with the exception of the estimated non-union
wage for unionized workers. A statistically signi…cant and positive coe¢cient of this
variable in the quasi-rents regression (and again in the quasi-rents per employee
regression) is consistent with the view that competitively determined higher nonunionized wages are associated with higher productivity and therefore quasi-rents.
While the measure of domestic competition, NUMBER OF PLANTS, is positively
correlated with QUASI-RENTS, it signi…cantly reduces QUASI-RENTS PER EMPLOYEE in the entire range of variation of this variable. It is possible that the
positive correlation could result from increased specialization across plants. Strikingly the measures of international competition are all statistically signi…cant. EXPORT SHARE is positively correlated with quasi-rents while IMPORT SHARE is
12
A decomposition of quasi-rents in its components along the lines suggested by equation (8)
shows that in spite of rising costs, primarily due to rising prices of raw materials and energy, it is
the value of output, and speci…cally the volume of production, that drives quasi-rents upward.
19
negatively correlated with quasi-rents — consistent with competitive importing. Finally the control for technological change, SHARE OF SCIENTISTS, is signi…cantly
positively correlated with QUASI-RENTS and QUASI-RENTS PER EMPLOYEE,
but not QUASI-RENTS PER PLANT. This result and the result for ESTIMATED
NON-UNION WAGE suggests that industries with a higher share of research workers expand the number of plants (and possibly increase plant specialization) until
the increase in quasi-rents is dissipated.
Given that the above mentioned variables have the expected impact on quasirents we now turn to the outsourcing variable. Remarkably, Table 4 shows that
OUTSOURCING SHARE is signi…cantly positively correlated with QUASI-RENTS
and QUASI-RENTS PER PLANT, but insigni…cantly related to QUASI-RENTS
PER EMPLOYEE. A possible explanation of such a result is that the increase
in quasi-rents is dissipated through a rise in employment, an hypothesis that we
examine in the next section.
B. Did Outsourcing A¤ect Productivity and Employment?
To address this question, we review the results of regressing PRODUCTIVITY
and EMPLOYMENT on outsourcing and a set of controls, as speci…ed in equations
(4) and (5). The results are summarized in Table 5. First, reviewing the controls reveals input price e¤ects across the two regressions are consistently as expected. For
example, the sign on the ESTIMATED NON-UNION WAGE is negative (though
insigni…cantly di¤erent from zero) and there is a signi…cant positive relationship
between this price and PRODUCTIVITY, suggesting PRODUCTIVITY rises as
employment falls. Although the raw materials and energy prices have opposite effects on PRODUCTIVITY, negative and positive respectively, PRICE OF RAW
MATERIALS has the expected positive impact on EMPLOYMENT, implying raw
materials and labor are substitutes. PRICE OF SHIPMENTS is surprisingly negatively correlated with EMPLOYMENT, a result that cannot be easily attributed to
changes in the market structure as we control for domestic and foreign competition.
The IMPORT SHARE is signi…cantly negatively correlated with both EMPLOY20
MENT and PRODUCTIVITY. EXPORT SHARE and PRODUCTIVITY (though
not EMPLOYMENT ) are signi…cantly positively correlated. This is consistent with
exporting taking place from high productivity industries, and imports gaining share
from low productivity industries. As expected CAPITAL has positive signi…cant
e¤ects on both EMPLOYMENT and PRODUCTIVITY. UNIONIZATION does
not signi…cantly a¤ect EMPLOYMENT but does have a mildly signi…cant positive
relationship with PRODUCTIVITY. This is consistent with the view according to
which “Unionism per se is neither a plus nor a minus to productivity" (Freeman,
2005).
As discussed in section II.A above, if there is complementarity rather than substitutability between in-house labor services and outsourced labor inputs, outsourcing
should increase quasi-rents by increasing revenues rather than by reducing employment. Table 5 shows that OUTSOURCING SHARE has a signi…cant positive e¤ect
on PRODUCTIVITY, consistent with the e¤ects on quasi-rents, but (more surprisingly) it also increases EMPLOYMENT. This result, not only denies support to the
hypothesis of substitutability between the internal and the external labor services,
but it also suggests that outsourcing enables the …rms to hire more labor.
This
raises the following important question.
C. Did Outsourcing A¤ect the Returns to Unionization?
The results for the e¤ects of outsourcing on the returns to unionization are contained in Table 6. First we consider the e¤ect on the union wage premium for all
workers in the second column of this table. Strikingly, there is a statistically signi…cant positive correlation between the UNION WAGE PREMIUM and OUTSOURCING SHARE, after controlling for the size of the quasi-rents. We then re-estimate the
equation using as a dependant variable UNION WAGE PREMIUM for substitute
workers and complement workers. These results are reported in the third and fourth
columns. Remarkably, and consistently with our expectations, a OUTSOURCING
SHARE is signi…cantly positively correlated with UNION WAGE PREMIUM for
the complementary workers but not for the substitute workers. Before discussing
21
this result in detail, we test the reliability of these results by discussing the e¤ects
of the controls.
For the all-workers regression, surprisingly UNIONIZATION has no signi…cant
e¤ect on UNION WAGE PREMIUM. However for both the two sub-samples, UNIONIZATION does have an e¤ect. For substitute workers, at unionization rates below
38%, greater unionization is associated with lower wage premiums, suggesting the
union trades o¤ wages for other bene…ts in bargaining. At unionization rates, above
38% UNIONIZATION has the expected positive e¤ect. For other workers, UNIONIZATION has a signi…cant positive relationship with the wage premium over almost
the entire range of variation of the union variable, as the turning point occurs at a
unionization rate of 90%. Notably, these …ndings are consistent with Blanch‡ower
and Bryson (2004)’s …nding according to which there is no single union wage e¤ect,
but a set of e¤ects that depend on worker and sectoral characteristics. QUASIRENTS PER EMPLOYEE have a positive e¤ect on the wage premium of substitute workers and a positive (at a declining rate) e¤ect on the wage premium of other
workers. While in the aggregate IMPORT SHARE has no e¤ect, this variable is
positively correlated with the union wage premium in the two subsamples. Such
results could indicate the existence of a reverse causation e¤ect, from high union
wage premiums to high import share or that this variable is picking up the greater
returns from using imported inputs, in addition to the e¤ects on quasi-rents. It is
important to note that the literature has found considerable variation in the relationship between union wage premiums and import competition (Blanch‡ower and
Bryson, 2004).EXPORT SHARE is only signi…cantly positive at the aggregate level
- although it is not for the two subsamples. NUMBER OF PLANTS also has a
positive e¤ect on the union wage premium (except at very high plant numbers).
Undoubtly, the most striking result is the positive relationship between OUTSOURCING SHARE and the union wage premiums, in both the all worker regression and the complement workers regression. There are two possible interpretations
for this result. First, outsourcing reduces the bargaining power of unionized substi22
tute workers, but not for unionized complement workers. Second, outsourced labor
increases the marginal productivity of complement unionized labor, who bargain
for higher wages. Clearly, we cannot easily discriminate between these two, not
necessarily, con‡icting explanations, because we do not observe the output or the
productivity of these groups of workers. However, this set of results challenge us to
address the following question.
D. Did Outsourcing A¤ect Unionization?
The results for the UNIONIZATION regressions, reported in Table 7, are organized in four columns, which refer to four di¤erent speci…cations of the regression
equation. Interestingly, the full speci…cation, with industry …xed e¤ects and time
dummy variables (Speci…cation IV in the …fth column), suggests that there is no
signi…cant relationship between UNIONIZATION and OUTSOURCING SHARE.
Before discussing this striking result, we …rst review the e¤ects of the industry and
time dummies. Without industry and time dummies, the variables selected to re‡ect quasi-rents and international competition are signi…cantly related (in varying
degrees) with UNIONIZATION. However, the inclusion of both sets of dummies
rendered the coe¢cients of these variables and the coe¢cient of the outsourcing
share insigni…cantly di¤erent from zero. For other variables, such as the NUMBER
OF PLANTS, technological change and worker characteristics variables, the signs
and (to a lesser extent) signi…cance vary across speci…cations. In speci…cation IV,
the NUMBER OF PLANTS is negatively correlated with UNIONIZATION but
the NUMBER OF PLANTS SQUARED is signi…cantly positively correlated with
UNIONIZATION, suggesting a U shaped relationship. The signs of the worker
characteristics variables, are in most cases, consistent with their e¤ects in individual
unionization regressions (see Magnani and Prentice (2003) for details). SHARE OF
SCIENTISTS has a signi…cantly negative e¤ect on UNIONIZATION, suggesting
falling (or always low) unionization in the more research-intensive sectors of manufacturing. The main conclusion we draw from this set of results is that, although the
preceding results showed some gains from outsourcing, these gains do not appear to
23
have been utilized to preserve unionization. Furthermore, it con…rms that, unlike
the popular perception, outsourcing has not been behind the decline of unionization
in U.S. manufacturing. The decline cannot, as argued in Magnani and Prentice
(2003), be explained as a simple function of a small number of changes. Neither
globalization or domestic outsourcing are unambiguous causes.
V. Conclusions.
While unions have been actively involved in the substantial reorganization of the
workplace in the late twentieth century, the widespread evidence suggests that there
has been union resistance to …rms adopting outsourcing. And this strategy would
seem sensible if outsourced workers were substitutes rather than complementary
to the permanent unionized labor. Using a newly compiled dataset, we demonstrate that outsourcing has been associated with higher quasi-rents per plant but
not with higher quasi-rents per employee, which is suggestive of greater employment per plant. Outsourcing is (robustly) positively associated with a rise in the
wage premium to union membership, a result consistent with outsourcing increasing
the productivity of the unionized permanent workforce following the outsourcing of
complementary services. Furthermore, we demonstrate no statistically signi…cant
relationship between unionization and outsourcing — neither positive or negative.
The substantial decline in unionization over the period of interest suggests some
quali…cations to these conclusions. In particular, it could be the case that where
unions survived, outsourcing was restricted to complementary services. Possibly
elsewhere outsourcing substituted for the workers no longer represented by the union.
The results on employment though suggest that outsourcing was positively associated with employment levels and changes in industry employment, which reduces
the likelihood of the latter story.
Our analysis of the gains to unionization suggest that union resistance to outsourcing may have been misplaced. While we fail to …nd any correlation between
union and outsourcing, our results warrant that there is space for an alliance be-
24
tween unionized internal workers and external workers to share the quasirents that
outsourcing increases. This would go in the direction that US unions seem already
interested in taking. This is not to say that organizing the contingent workforce segment of the labor force is an easy task. In fact it may imply the full consideration of
what material conditions numerical ‡exibility implies, namely income uncertainty,
precariousness and skill ‡exibility, aspects that our study is unable to address.
APPENDIX - Occupations selected as substitutes for outsourced services
Table A lists all of the two-digit Census occupations classi…ed as, in manufacturing, being substitutes for outsourced services. All other occupations are classi…ed
as being complementary. There are two features to note about this list. First, while
we classi…ed all occupations in the CPS, for programming convenience, it is clear
that only some occupations will be represented in our sample. This is because we
only consider employees in manufacturing, where some of the listed occupations,
such as college and university teachers, are absent. Second, note that in general, the
1980 classi…cation is more detailed than the 1970 classi…cation. However, the 1970
classi…cation contains several classes that appear to be more detailed that the 1980
match. For example, the 1970 class“Other professionals" includes the more detailed
1980 class of “College and university teachers".
25
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29
Table 1: Employment levels in the US business service sector
and its sub-sectors in 1972 and 2000 and percentage rate of
change between 1972 and 2000
Industry
1987 SIC Employment % Change
1972 2000
Business Services
73
1491 9858
561.2
Advertising
731
122
302
147.5
Credit Reporting and Collection
732
76
158
107.9
Mailing,
Reproduction
and 733
82
328
300.0
Stenography
Services to buildings
734
336
994
195.8
Personnel Supply Services
736
214
3887
1716.4
Computer and Data Processing 737
107
2095
1857.9
Services
Engineering and Architectural 871
339
1017
200.0
Services
Accounting, Auditing and Book- 872
204
669
227.9
keeping
Total Employment - Services
50007 106050 112.1
Total Employment - Nonfarm
73675 131759 78.8
Source: Data are in thousands and come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
SIC= Standard Industrial Classi…cation code.
Table 2: Cost share of purchased services in US manufacturing,
1949-1998
Year
1949 1957 1967 1972 1979 1982 1988 1992 1998
Cost
0.044 0.055 0.072 0.073 0.079 0.080 0.096 0.11 0.12
share
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics (KLEMS data set).
30
Table 3: The Data— Definitions
Name of Variable
De…nition
UNIONIZATION
Share of employees covered by collective bargaining agreement (CPS)
SHARE OF BLACK
Share of employees that are black (CPS)
AVERAGE AGE
Average age of all employees (CPS)
SHARE OF WOMEN
Share of female employees (CPS)
SHARE OF YOUNG
Share of employees with age less than 30 (CPS)
SHARE OF OLD
Share of employees with age more than 40 (CPS)
SHARE WITH COLLEGE Share of employees with a college degree (CPS)
SHARE WITH < HIGH
Share of employees with less than high school degree (CPS)
SCHOOL
NUMBER OF PLANTS
Number of plants (CBP)
EXPORT SHARE
Exports/domestic output (NBER Trade)
IMPORT SHARE
Imports/(domestic output + imports) (NBER Trade)
SHARE OF SCIENTISTS Share of employees scientists or engineers (CPS)
EMPLOYMENT
Number of employees (in 10000s) (NBER)
PRODUCTIVITY
Real shipments divided by Employment (NBER)
OUTSOURCING SHARE
Ratio of values of purchased services to output (KLEMS)
(a) CBP denotes County Business Patterns, NBER MP and Trade denotes NBER Manufacturing Productivity and
Trade Databases respectively. CPS data is from outgoing rotations (1983-1994) and May CPS (1973-1980).
31
32
Table 3a: The Data— Summary Statistics(a)
Whole Sample
Mean Std.dev Min
UNIONIZATION
0.31
0.17
0.02
QUASI-RENTS (b)
923.5 881.4
36.6
QUASI-RENTS
4.6
4.2
1.0
PER EMPLOYEE (c)
QUASI-RENTS
67.1
136.5
1.51
PER PLANT (d)
NUMBER OF PLANTS
4469.2 6841.1
76
EXPORT SHARE
0.09
0.08
0.0002
IMPORT SHARE
0.11
0.11
0.0003
SHARE OF SCIENTISTS
0.04
0.05
0
OUTSOURCING SHARE
0.08
0.04
0.02
EMPLOYMENT
240.8 237.2
19.5
ESTIMATED NON-UNION 758.0 267.2
259.7
WAGE (w)
b
UNION WAGE PREMIUM 0.10
0.16
-0.45
PRODUCTIVITY
155.2 169.79
5.6
SHARE OF WOMEN
0.30
0.16
0
AVERAGE AGE
38.3
2.1
30.1
SHARE WITH COLLEGE
0.29
0.14
0
Max
1
5762.0
49.5
1973 Only
Mean Std.dev
0.46
0.17
778.5 693.0
3.6
2.3
1983 Only
Mean Std.dev
0.31
0.14
828.4 762.1
4.2
3.0
1994 Only
Mean Std.dev
0.20
0.12
1181.0 1198.1
6.2
5.9
1541.5 57.0
89.5
58.8
111.1
80.8
171.0
55628
0.41
0.71
0.37
0.50
1251.1
1580.3
3708.8
0.06
0.06
0.03
0.07
250.1
359.6
5052.7
0.06
0.06
0.04
0.03
243.8
44.1
4463.9
0.08
0.09
0.05
0.08
231.5
774.7
6813.7
0.07
0.08
0.05
0.04
229.4
97.5
5085.9
0.12
0.16
0.06
0.10
234.2
931.2
8216.9
0.09
0.15
0.07
0.05
238.5
77.8
1.03
1703.8
0.90
48.5
0.77
0.07
122.8
0.27
38.4
0.20
0.14
122.7
0.17
2.40
0.10
0.11
141.9
0.30
38.3
0.29
0.15
137.7
0.16
1.90
0.12
0.28
206.6
0.30
38.9
0.41
0.20
219.1
0.14
1.89
0.14
(a) For all variables there are 1439 observations.
(b) Units for QUASI-RENTS is $10 million dollars (real)
(c) Units for QUASI-RENTS PER EMPLOYEE is $10,000 per employee (real).
(d) Units for QUASI-RENTS PER PLANT is $100,000 per plant (real).
Table 4: Instrumental Variables Regressions of Quasi-rents
Quasi-Rents Per Plant and Quasi-rents Per Employee
Selected explanatory variables (a)
Quasi-rents Quasi-rents Quasi-rents
per plant
per employee
PRICE OF RAW MATERIALS
-41.559
14.569
-0.326
(125.923)
(23.979)
(0.766)
PRICE OF ENERGY
-111.707
49.565
1.113
(160.317)
(30.528)
(0.975)
ESTIMATED NON-UNION WAGE 0.405
-0.046
0.0019
(0.166)
(0.032)
(0.001)
NUMBER OF PLANTS
0.081
-0.0032
-0.0003
(0.017)
(0.0032)
(0.0001)
NUMBER OF PLANTS SQUARED 1.11e-07
6.27e-08
4.11e-09
(2.05e-07)
(3.90e-08)
(1.25e-09)
IMPORT SHARE
-1748.267
-353.118
-9.501
(537.015)
(102.260)
(3.268)
EXPORT SHARE
2090.883
393.052
9.858
(498.449)
(94.916)
(3.033)
SHARE OF SCIENTISTS
756.804
-25.927
70.344
(311.120)
(59.245)
(1.651)
OUTSOURCING SHARE
1925.698
2367.559
1.171
(271.398)
(51.681)
(1.893)
CONSTANT
-1065.299
-110.281
0.649
(201.660)
(38.401)
(1.227)
Number of observations
1439
1439
1439
F-Test
212.42
137.72
125.40
All regressions include time and industry …xed e¤ects, and use annual
observations from 1973-1980 and 1983-1994. Standard errors are in parentheses.
*, **, *** indicate statistical signi…cance at the 10%, 5% and 1%, respectively.
Notes: (a) Interactions between import share and input prices as well as export share
and input prices are included among the explanatory variables.
These results are available upon request.
33
Table 5: Instrumental Variables Regressions of Productivity and Employment
Productivity Employment
ESTIMATED NON-UNION WAGE 0.11
-0.078
(0.051)
(0.049)
UNIONIZATION
-451.759
-319.422
(290.803)
(282.025)
UNIONIZATION SQUARED
518.973
215.908
(305.208)
(295.995)
CAPITAL
0.003
0.003
(0.0005)
(0.0005)
PRICE OF SHIPMENTS
-9.297
-31.778
(4.721)
(4.579)
PRICE OF RAW MATERIALS
-144.831
47.260
(25.289)
(24.719)
PRICE OF ENERGY
73.957
-33.806
(30.470)
(29.550)
IMPORT SHARE
-71.187
-317.105
(29.880)
(28.978)
EXPORT SHARE
107.798
10.787
(61.709)
(59.845)
NUMBER OF PLANTS
-0.019
0.022
(0.004)
((0.004)
NUMBER OF PLANTS SQUARED 1.65e-07
-9.21e-08
(4.38e-08)
(4.25e-08)
SHARE OF SCIENTISTS
-34.498
22.637
(64.623)
(62.673)
OUTSOURCING SHARE
233.881
99.246
(57.781)
(56.037)
CONSTANT
297.64
-70.008
(56.499)
(54.793)
Number of observations
1439
1439
F-Test
302.37
449.66
All regressions include time and industry …xed e¤ects, and use annual
observations from 1973-1980 and 1983-1994. Standard errors are in parentheses.
*, **, *** indicate statistical signi…cance at the 10%, 5% and 1%, respectively.
34
Table 6: Instrumental Variables Estimation of Union Wage Premiums
For all workers, substitute workers and complement workers
Explanatory Variables
All
Substitute workers Complement workers
UNIONIZATION
0.171
-0.689
1.849
(0.726)
(0.309)
(0.297)
UNIONIZATION SQUARED
0.285
0.903
-1.179
(0.704)
(0.316)
(0.249)
QUASI-RENTS PER
0.028
0.037
0.041
EMPLOYEE
(0.022)
(0.011)
(0.010)
QUASI-RENTS PER
-0.002
-0.0004
-0.001
EMPLOYEE SQUARED
(0.0006)
(0.0003)
(0.0003)
IMPORT SHARE
0.077
0.305
0.158
(0.117)
(0.083)
(0.076)
EXPORT SHARE
0.647
-0.047
0.062
(0.230)
(0.143)
(0.137)
NUMBER OF PLANTS
4.96e-06
0.00002
0.00002
(0.00001) (7.56e-06)
(7.00e-06)
NUMBER OF PLANTS SQUARED -5.36e-11 -3.35e-10
-2.63e-10
(1.61e-10) (9.28e-11)
(8.12e-11)
OUTSOURCING SHARE
4.737
-0.633
1.295
(1.420)
(0.688)
(0.642)
CONSTANT
-0.105
0.073
-0.309
(0.258)
(0.109)
(0.130)
Number of observations
1439
1217
1296
F-Test
9.90
19.47
36.76
All regressions include time and industry …xed e¤ects, and use annual
observations from 1973-1980 and 1983-1994. Standard errors are in parentheses.
*, **, *** indicate statistical signi…cance at the 10%, 5% and 1%, respectively.
35
Table 7: Weighted Instrumental Variables Estimation of Unionization
Explanatory variables
No Fixed Industry Fixed Year Fixed
Industry and Year
E¤ects
E¤ects Only
E¤ects Only Fixed E¤ects
QUASI-RENTS PER
0.081
-0.033
-0.006
0.014
EMPLOYEE
(0.020)
(0.009)
(0.023)
(0.014)
QUASI-RENTS PER
-0.001
0.001
-0.001
-0.0003
EMPLOYEE SQUARED
(0.0009)
(0.0003)
(0.0008)
(0.0004)
SHARE OF BLACK
-0.409
-0.096
0.321
0.079
(0.120)
(0.072)
(0.181)
(0.049)
AVERAGE AGE
0.017
0.012
0.030
0.011
(0.015)
(0.004)
(0.012)
(0.003)
SHARE OF WOMEN
-0.315
-0.140
-0.376
-0.117
(0.038)
(0.053)
(0.040)
(0.047)
SHARE OF YOUNG
0.550
0.150
-0.907
-0.063
(0.273)
(0.072)
(0.304)
(0.067)
SHARE OF OLD
0.843
0.032
-0.558
-0.219
(0.332)
(0.084)
(0.361)
(0.067)
SHARE WITH COLLEGE -1.273
-0.086
-0.229
-0.162
(0.218)
(0.056)
(0.267)
(0.043)
SHARE WITH < HIGH
0.124
0.393
-0.347
-0.052
SCHOOL
(0.131)
(0.045)
(0.126)
(0.055)
NUMBER OF PLANTS
-4.82e-07 -0.00001
-6.19e-06
-4.05e-06
(1.94e-06) (3.84e-06)
(1.71e-06)
(2.99e-06)
NUMBER OF PLANTS
6.85e-11
1.07e-10
4.81e-11
5.68e-11
SQUARED
(3.71e-11) (4.08e-11)
(2.31e-11)
(3.04e-11)
IMPORT SHARE
0.273
-0.182
0.147
-0.005
(0.063)
(0.059)
(0.055)
(0.046)
EXPORT SHARE
0.026
0.153
-0.398
0.035
(0.084)
(0.072)
(0.098)
(0.063)
SHARE OF SCIENTISTS 1.111
-0.329
-0.610
-0.193
(0.318)
(0.115)
(0.402)
(0.080)
OUTSOURCING SHARE
-0.238
-1.098
2.207
0.046
(0.707)
(0.218)
(0.663)
(0.381)
CONSTANT
-0.555
-0.308
-0.035
-0.029
(0.609)
(0.149)
(0.455)
(0.116)
Number of observations
1439
1439
1439
1439
Annual observations from 1973-1980 and 1983-1994 are used. Standard errors in parentheses.
*, **, *** indicate statistical signi…cance at the 10%, 5% and 1%, respectively.
36
Table A: Census Occupations classi…ed as equivalent to those in outsourced services.
Two
Digit
Code
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
14
15
16
17
23
24
37
38
39
40
41
1970 Classi…cation
Name
Engineers
Physicans etc.
Health workers
Teachers, excl college
Engineering and science
technicans
Other professionals
(salaried)
Other professionals
(self employed)
Bookkeepers
O¢ce machine operators
Stenographers etc.
Other clerical workers
Mechanics - auto
Mechanics excl auto
Cleaning services
Food service
Health service
Personal service
Protective service
1980 Classi…cation
Two
Digit
Code
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
37
Name
Management related occupations
Engineers
Mathematical and computer scientists
Natural scientists
Health diagnosing occupations
Health assessment and treating occupations
College and university teachers
Teachers, excl college and university
Lawyers and judges
Other professional speciality occupations
Health technologists and technicans
Engineering and science technicans
Technicans excl health, engineering and science
Secretaries etc
Financial records, processing occupations
Mail and message distributing
Other administrative support occupations
Private household service occupations
Service occupations excl. protection and household
Food service occupations
Health service occupations
Cleaning and building service occupations
Personal service occupations
Mechanics and repairers