Industry-wide work rules and productivity: evidence from Argentine union contract data

Abstract: In the early 1990’s, the Argentine government promoted a framework forproductivity-based negotiations between firms and unions at low levels oforganization. The policy weakened the industry-wide collective bargaining system,which sets working conditions for all firms in an industry. This paper employsnewly developed quantile regression approaches to investigate the effect of unionpractices on productivity within the context of the reform. The findings show that(i) industry-wide practices on displacement of workers and training have anegative impact on productivity; (ii) work practices do not appear to restricteconomic efficiency in the post-reform period; (iii) union practices on technologyacquisition have an adverse effect on high-productivity growth industries.Productivity seems to improve in an economy promoting policies to weakenindustry-wide collective bargaining.