Earnings and Employment in Trucking: Deregulating a Naturally Competitive Industry

Hirsch, Barry T.; Macpherson, David A.; Alexis, Marcus

doi:10.1007/978-94-011-4856-6_3

Cited by 42 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…This finding is consistent with previous analyses of hourly and weekly wage data (see Hirsch and Macpherson 1997;Hirsch 1988;Peoples 1998;Talley 2004), which all report that the wage premium for truckers declined following deregulation. It is important to note that these authors were able to begin their analysis in the early 1970s, well before the start of transportation deregulation.…”

Section: Annual Earnings Model Resultssupporting

confidence: 93%

Container ports, local benefits and transportation worker earnings

Hall

2008

GeoJournal

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Over the past 50 years, containerization has both enabled and reflected the articulation of increasingly concentrated and complex global trade flows. Once close infrastructural, economic and institutional ties between seaports and port cities have been loosened, since major ports now serve producers and consumers in widely dispersed hinterlands. This process has been especially intense in North America, where west coast ports serve markets across the continent. At the same time, many of the external costs of increased port activity are incurred in port cities. Hence, questions about the changing nature of employment in port and related goodshandling sectors have become increasingly important for understanding the share of economic benefits received by port cities. This paper focuses on the effects of containerization, and related changes in transportation regulation, on port-logistics worker earnings in major United States port cities since 1975. A difference-in-differences framework is used to examine the relative annual earnings of dock, trucking and warehouse workers in major container port cities. The analysis shows that, with notable exceptions, port-logistics worker earnings in major container ports are not necessarily higher than those of comparable workers. The findings provide further insights into the strained relationship between seaports and port cities in the era of containerization and economic globalization.

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Section: Annual Earnings Model Resultssupporting

confidence: 93%

Container ports, local benefits and transportation worker earnings

Hall

2008

GeoJournal

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“…In the U.S., for example, the real weekly wages of union railroad engineers have declined 11.7% (Talley and Schwarz-Miller, 1998) and the real hourly wages of union and non-union for-hire truck carrier drivers have declined 23% and 10% (Hirsch and Macpherson, 1998) under railroad and trucking deregulation. Evidence also suggests that the relative wages of transportation carrier industries tend to widen under deregulation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wage Differentials of Intermodal Transportation Carriers and Ports: Deregulation Versus Regulation

Talley¹

2004

Review of Network Economics

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This paper investigates the wage differentials of intermodal transportation carriers and ports under carrier economic regulation and deregulation. The estimation results suggest that the union wages of truck drivers, rail engineers and port dockworkers were comparable in the regulation period; in the deregulation period the union wages of truck drivers and rail engineers declined relative to those of dockworkers. The wage differential estimates indicate negative union hourly wage gaps for truck drivers and rail engineers of 22.7% and 6.9%, respectively, versus dockworkers. These results reflect the increase (decrease) in the relative bargaining power of dockworkers (truck drivers and rail engineers) in the deregulation period.

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“…Postal Service, in each of which unionized workers have captured regulatory rents (Hirsch, 1988;Hirsch and Macpherson, 1998;Hirsch, et al, 1999).…”

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confidence: 99%

What Do Unions Do for Economic Performance?

Hirsch

2017

What Do Unions Do?

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent, nonprofit limited liability company (Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung) supported by Deutsche Post World Net. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its research networks, research support, and visitors and doctoral programs. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. The current research program deals with (1) mobility and flexibility of labor, (2) internationalization of labor markets, (3) welfare state and labor market, (4) labor markets in transition countries, (5) the future of labor, (6) evaluation of labor market policies and projects and (7) general labor economics. Terms of use: Documents inIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available on the IZA website (www.iza.org) or directly from the author. This essay assesses their analysis of how unions in the U.S. private sector affect economic performance -productivity, profitability, investment, and growth. Freeman and Medoff are clearly correct that union productivity effects vary substantially across workplaces. Their conclusion that union effects are on average positive and substantial cannot be sustained, subsequent evidence suggesting an average union productivity effect near zero. Their speculation that productivity effects are larger in more competitive environments appears to hold up, although more evidence is needed. Subsequent literature continues to find unions associated with lower profitability, as noted by Freeman and Medoff. Unions are found to tax returns stemming from market power, but industry concentration is not the source of such returns. Rather, unions capture firm quasi-rents arising from long-lived tangible and intangible capital and from firm-specific advantages. Lower profits and the union tax on asset returns leads to reduced investment and, subsequently, lower employment and productivity growth. There is little evidence that unionization leads to higher rates of business failure...

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Earnings and Employment in Trucking: Deregulating a Naturally Competitive Industry

Cited by 42 publications

References 30 publications

Container ports, local benefits and transportation worker earnings

Container ports, local benefits and transportation worker earnings

Wage Differentials of Intermodal Transportation Carriers and Ports: Deregulation Versus Regulation

What Do Unions Do for Economic Performance?

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