Abstract:

In this article, the authors assess the credibility of research that has
tested the theoretical contests between the monopoly and the collective
voice model of unions developed by Freeman and Medoff in
What Do Unions Do? The authors go beyond prior analyses by examining
more than 2,000 estimates that consider the effects of unions
on a broad range of organizational and individual outcomes, including
productivity, productivity growth, capital investment, profits, and
job satisfaction. They advance our understanding of the current
empirical findings and credibility of this research by using metastatistical
analysis to evaluate research quality, publication selection
bias, statistical power, and heterogeneity. The authors conclude that
compared to other areas of economics, research on union effects
has lower bias but larger problems of statistical power. They argue
that Freeman and Medoff’s monopoly–collective voice model helped
produce more credible results, and they suggest ways to reduce the
power and heterogeneity problems in existing research.

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