Reactions to story from Crooked Timber

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  links for 2008-05-10

  http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2008/05/lin...
  6 days ago in Economist's View · Authority: 780

  Unions: good for equity, good for efficiency - Crooked Timber The historical roots of India's booming service economy - Vox EU What if we'd been on the gold standard? - Econbrowser Interests of Retirees and High-Bracket Taxpayers Align? - Angry Bear
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  links for 2008-05-10

  http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2008/05/lin...
  6 days ago in Economist's View · Authority: 687

  Unions: good for equity, good for efficiency - Crooked Timber The historical roots of Indias booming service economy - Vox EU What if we'd been on the gold standard? - Econbrowser Dep't of Who'd'a Thunk: Interests of Social Security Retirees and
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  Can labour deliver?

  http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2008/05/can_labo...
  3 days ago in Free exchange | Economist.com · Authority: 491

  ECONOMICS blogger Kathy G has written a Crooked Timber post extolling the virtues of organised labour--not just in terms of safety standards or increased wages, but as a means to improve efficiency and productivity. A sample:Because unions give workers a voice, unionized workers have lower quit rates than their nonunion counterparts. This reduces turnover costs, which is one reason why union firms enjoy higher productivity. Union workers also have longer job tenures, which means they’re more skilled and experienced, on average, than their nonunion counterparts. The benefits don't end there, according to Ms G. Better labour management relations--thanks to unions--can improve the quality and reduce the quantity of managers needed. And, of course, higher wages force managers to seek efficiencies elsewhere in unionised plants. I should note that Ms G does not mention one key concern economists tend to express about unions--that regardless of what they do inside plants, they tend to reduce employment outside. Then one must weigh the benefits to unionised and employed workers against the costs to those left without work. But a bigger problem with this assessment is that if unions generally made for innovative and productive firms, then one would think firms might be eager to cultivate unions. Whatever their corporate predispositions, companies tend to not leave too much money lying around uncollected. All it would take is one or two examples of unionisation breeding success to inspire imitators, but that is not what we see. This problem is perhaps best illustrated with an example used by Ms G herself: Toyota. Toyota's Japanese plants are unionised, but its American sites are not. Keep in mind that Toyota is described thusly:Whatever problems Toyota is currently having, [New Yorker writer James] Surowiecki points out that Toyota has “long been the auto industry’s most profitable and innovative firm” and that this year it may become the sales leader, as well. What have been the secrets to Toyota’s success? Surowiecki points to innovation, and in particular, Toyota’s vision of “innovation as an incremental process, in which the goal is not to make huge, sudden leaps but, rather, to make things better on a daily basis.” If there are such significant benefits to unionisation, why wouldn't a firm held up as a model of innovation, and which has direct experience with unionised and non-unionised plants, organise the labour in its American factories? What explains the apparent dollar bill left on the ground? Maybe, just maybe, there is no dollar bill. (Photo credit: AP)
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  Os sindicatos contam

  http://ladroesdebicicletas.blogspot.com/2008/05/as-virtudes-...
  5 days ago in Ladrões de Bicicletas · Authority: 184

  O crooked timber é um excelente blogue de esquerda feito por académicos anglosaxónicos da área das ciências sociais. Por exemplo, é lá que podemos encontrar, numa posta sobre a Toyota, uma excelente defesa dos sindicatos, invocando argumentos de equidade e de eficiência. Citam-se estudos empíricos que suportam a ideia de que as empresas com trabalhadores sindicalizados tendem a ser mais produtivas e avançam-se razões para este padrão: (1) os salário tendem a ser mais elevados e por isso os gestores são pressionados a esforçarem-se mais para que a eficiência aumente; (2) a existência de sindicatos favorece a «voz» dos trabalhadores, reduzindo as saídas e os custos com uma excessiva rotação de pessoal; (3) as relações laborais tendem a ser mais cooperativas e os trabalhadores tendem a estar mais motivados; (4) a maior estabilidade reforça os incentivos para investimentos em formação e conhecimento em áreas relacionadas com as actividades especificas da empresa; (5) a existência de mecanismos de comunicação e uma gestão mais participada permitem que o conhecimento disperso pelos trabalhadores seja mobilizado e que a suas sugestões possam ser implementadas; (6) retomando um importante estudo empírico, concluí-se que as empresas com sindicatos importantes tendem a ter menos gestores, economizando nos custos de monitorização, e tendem a bloquear desigualdades salariais excessivas e contraproducentes. Não é por acaso que as economias escandinavas, das mais competitivas do mundo, têm elevadíssimas taxas de sindicalização e desigualdades salariais baixas. Como se afirma neste estudo sobre «o multiplicador da igualdade» , elas têm um terço das desigualdades de rendimento dos EUA antes de impostos e gastam duas vezes mais em despesas sociais. Definitivamente, os sindicatos contam.
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  Sindicatos e produtividade

  http://ventosueste.blogspot.com/2008/05/sindicatos-e-produti...
  5 days ago in Vento Sueste · Authority: 83

  Unions: good for equity, good for efficiency por Kathy G. no Crooked Timber:The best research has found that unionized firms are, on average, more productive than their nonunionized counterparts. There are a number of reasons for this. (...) One especially interesting finding in the literature is that unionized workplaces have fewer managers. The intuitive assumption may be that more managers leads to more close supervision of workers, which leads to more productivity, but the literature on unions sheds doubt on that thesis. Getting back to Toyota—it is interesting that so much of their success is due to their having implemented suggestions from ordinary workers. A union setting would tend to provide a far more hospitable environment for soliciting such ideas, since union workers have mechanisms for voicing complaints and suggestions and don’t have to fear for their job security. American workplaces, which tend to be nonunion and overmanaged (the U.S. has one of the highest ratios of managers to workers in the world), would present structural obstacles to adapting Toyota’s decidely non-top-down system. More workplace democracy, in the form of more unions, fewer managers, and fewer firms organized on top-down principles, is highly desirable from an equity standpoint. But Toyota and the literature on unions provide compelling evidence it would be better for efficiency, as well. [via Economist's View]
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  Spreadin' Love

  http://11d.typepad.com/blog/2008/05/spreadin-love-1.html
  6 days ago in 11D · Authority: 70

  Dooce and other mommybloggers were interviewed by Kathy Lee Gifford on the Today show. Kathy G. defends unionized workplaces. She writes, "The best research has found that unionized firms are, on average, more productive than their nonunionized counterparts." In a recent comment thread about teacher tenure, I said that I didn't think that too many professors slacked off after getting tenure. Some of you disagreed with me. Dan Drezner proudly declares it's donut and hobby time, now that he's been made full professor. (While you're there, read his two posts on HIllary.) In Democracy in America, deTocqueville fears that great mediocrity will happen as the world becomes more democratic and less aristocratic. There will be more malls and Levittown and less Versailles. According to an article in Foreign Policy, the architecture in autocratic nations today is incredibly innovative. Check out the buildings in Dubai and Azerbaijan.
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  Unions = Teh Awesome

  http://mikemeginnis.com/wordpress/?p=90
  6 days ago in Ways to End the World › writing, politics, culture, apocalypse · Authority: 10

  Read Kathy G. on why.

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