Score contribution per author:
α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count
This article interprets literature examining union effects on economic performance. Production function studies indicate small overall union impacts on productivity; positive effects, where they exist, appear to result from management response to decreased profit expectations and from a natural selection process. Lower profitabilit y among unionized firms is well established; more interesting is the possibility that unions appropriate quasi-rents deriving from long-lived tangible and intangible capital. The connection between unions, investment behavior, and productivity growth emerges as a particularly fruitful line of empirical inquiry, although it does not encourage a sanguine view of unionism's long-run impact. Copyright 1989 by University of Chicago Press.