The rise and fall of unionised labour markets: A political economy approach

Studying a model where trade unions interact with endogenously formed partisan political parties, we explain changing political preferences for and against the unionised labour market regime. We focus on the changes in coalition formation between unskilled and moderately skilled workers, which in turn depend on inequality among workers. When inequality is either very low or very high, moderately skilled workers form a political coalition with unskilled workers to support a unionised labour market regime. In other cases, the economic interest of the moderately skilled workers is more in line with that of highly skilled workers and capital owners to support a competitive labour market regime.