Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/278340 
Year of Publication: 
2023
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper Series in Economics No. 418
Publisher: 
Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Institut für Volkswirtschaftslehre, Lüneburg
Abstract: 
We investigate to what extent workplace unionisation protects workers from external shocks as predicted by models of implicit contracts. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a plausibly exogenous shock hitting the whole economy, we compare workers who worked in unionised and non-unionised workplaces directly before the pandemic in a difference-in-differences framework. We find that unionised workers were substantially more like to remain working for their pre-COVID employer, at their pre-COVID workplace, in their pre-COVID job and to be in employment. This greater employment stability was not traded off against lower working hours or labour income.
Subjects: 
Unions
risk-sharing
implicit contracts
insurance effects
COVID-19
JEL: 
J51
I18
I19
J63
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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