The Role of Unions in the Twenty-first Century

After obtaining his Ph.D. in economics from New York University, Tito Boeri was senior economist at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) from 1987 to 1996. In this position, among other things, he co-ordinated all the work carried out by the OECD in the field of human resource policies in the central and eastern European economies in transition after 1990. He was also consultant to the International Monetary Fund, the ILO and the World Bank. He is currently associate professor of economics at Bocconi University, Milan, where he teaches courses on labour economics and the economics of transition, and is affiliated with the Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research (IGIER). He is Director of the Fondazione Rodolfo Debenedetti, which operates in the field of labour market and social policy reforms in Europe.Lars Calmfors is Professor of Economics at Stockholm University.Agar Brugiavini is Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Venice.

• Introduction ; 1. INTRODUCTION ; 2. Union Membership ; 3. Wage bargaining: competition, trade, surplus and power ; 4. Wider dimensions of unions' presence ; 5. Bargaining structure and macroeconomic performance ; 6. The future prospects of trade unions in Europe ; Comments ; INTRODUCTION ; 1. Unions' involvement in the welfare state ; 2. Unions and pensions: theory, evidence and implications ; 3. Learning from welfare reforms: the case of public pensions ; 4. Unions and unemployment insurance ; 5. Conclusions: What do unions do to the welfare states? ; Appendix: Unions and Benefits: a simple Analytical Framework ; Comments ; Final Remarks

... a scholarly volume of interest to anyone concerned with the future of European unions, and whose discussion of organized labour's approach to the welfare question should become a central reference point.