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Wage bargaining with discount rates varying in time underdifferent strike decisions∗
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2014
Abstract
We present a non-cooperative union-firm wage bargaining model in which the union mustchoose between strike and holdout if a proposed wage contract is rejected. The innovativeelement that our model brings to the existing literature on wage bargaining concerns theparties’ preferences which are not expressed by constant discount rates, but by sequencesof discount factors varying in time. First, we determine subgame perfect equilibria if thestrike decision of the union is exogenous. We analyze the case when the union is committedto strike in each disagreement period, the case when the union is committed to strike onlywhen its own offer is rejected, and the case of the never strike exogenous decision. Acomparison of the results is provided, among the cases of the exogenous strike decisions.Next, we consider the general model with no assumption on the commitment to strike. Wefind subgame perfect equilibria in which the strategies supporting the equilibria in theexogenous cases are combined with the minimum-wage strategies, provided that the firm isnot less patient than the union. If the firm is more impatient than the union, then thefirm is better off by playing the no-concession strategy. We find a subgame perfectequilibrium for this case.
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- © EDP Sciences, ROADEF, SMAI, 2014
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