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Journal of Labor Economics Vol. 17 No. 3 1999

Investment and Union Certification

Bruce Fallick1; Kevin A. Hassett2

1 Federal Reserve Board of Governors · 2 American Enterprise Institute

open access

Abstract

Using data on union certification elections, we estimate the impact of unionization on firms' investment behavior. Employing both a standard q model and an “investment surprises” technique, we find that union certification significantly reduces investment in the year following the election. We find that a winning certification election has, on average, about the same effect on investment in the year following the event as would—given the elasticity measures taken from the public finance literature—a 33 percentage‐point increase in the corporate tax. The magnitude of the response in years further away from the election is less certain.

DOI
10.1086/209931
Volume
17
Issue
3
Pages
570-582
Language
en
Sources
openalex crossref

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