The Effect of Globalization on Union Bargaining and Price-Cost Margins of Firms

In recent years, Europe has witnessed an accelerated process of economic integration. Trade barriers were removed, the euro was introduced and ten new member states have joined the European Union. This paper analyzes how this process of increased economic integration has affected labor and product markets. To this end, we use a panel of Belgian manufacturing firms to estimate price-cost margins and union bargaining power and show how various measures of globalization affect them. Our findings can be summarized as follows: On average, firms set prices about 30% above marginal costs, but there i... Mehr ...