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Labour Unions, Public Policy and Economic Growth. By Tapio Palokangas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xiv, 237. $64.95.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2001

Gerald Friedman
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Abstract

Some economists are confident that they understand labor unions. Viewing unions as monopolies, they believe unions raise their members' wages by reducing labor supply to unionized trades. In this monopoly-union view, nonmembers pay for union wage gains through higher prices for union-made goods and lower wages for nonunion workers due to crowding into nonunion industries and trades. By tampering with the free-market distribution of labor, unions distort the fair distribution of wages and income and lower output by pushing workers from more- into less-efficient occupations.

Type
BOOK REVIEW
Copyright
© 2001 Cambridge University Press

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