Most labor economics textbooks pay little attention to actual labor markets, taking as
reference a perfectly competitive market in which losing a job is not a big deal. The …

Consumers purchase conspicuous goods to satisfy not only material needs but also social
needs such as prestige. In an attempt to meet these social needs, producers of conspicuous …

Social needs play an important role in the purchase of conspicuous goods. In this article, the
authors extend traditional economic models to accommodate social needs, such as desire …

One of the key scientific challenges is the puzzle of human cooperation. Why do people
cooperate? Why do people help strangers, even sometimes at a major cost to themselves …

Can the recent decline in union density in Europe be attributed to specific economic, social
or institutional causes? Can unions influence these causes and reverse decline? Using two …

Union density The economic roles of unions and institutions We study the evolution of union
density in 14 European countries over the postwar period in light of theoretical rationales for …

Using representative individual‐level data from the first round of the European Social Survey
fielded in 2002/03, this article provides an empirical analysis of unionisation in 18 countries …

In a cross-section of countries, state regulation of labor markets is negatively correlated with
the quality of labor relations. In this paper, we argue that these facts reflect different ways of …

We show how social norms may be endogenized in the context of Akerlof's theory of social
custom. We argue that social norms may be consciously created by agents through an …

In the absence of closed shops and discriminatory wage policies, union membership can be
explained by the existence of social norms. We describe a model, incorporating institutional …