Title
Trade Unions and the Welfare Economics of Wages and Income Policy
Author(s)
Andrew J. Oswald Andrew Oswald (Oxford University and Princeton University)
Abstract
This paper discusses the welfare economics of wages and incomes policy. Wage equilibrium is shown to be sub-optimal, because there are trade unions which ignore the external effects created by their own wage claims. Government wages policy is seen as a blanket measure, reducing pay by a small amount for each group, rather than as a selective kind of sectoral control, and is treated as a policy which attempts to change the real characteristics of the economy. Envelope properties help to simplify the welfare expressions. The overall results are not especially favourable to the case for wages and incomes policy.
Creation Date
1984-07
Section URL ID
IRS
Paper Number
177
URL
https://dataspace.princeton.edu/bitstream/88435/dsp01x633f1028/1/177.pdf
File Function
Jel
C67
Keyword(s)
incomes, policy
Suppress
false
Series
1