Bankruptcy and the Cost of Organized Labor: Evidence from Union Elections / Murillo Campello, Janet Gao, Jiaping Qiu, Yue Zhang.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Campello, Murillo.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Gao, Janet.

Qiu, Jiaping.

Zhang, Yue.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w23869.

NBER working paper series no. w23869

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Bankruptcy and the Cost of Organized Labor

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2017.

Summary:

Unionized workers are entitled to special treatment in bankruptcy court. This can be detrimental to other corporate stakeholders in default states, with unsecured creditors standing to lose the most. Using data on union elections covering several decades, we employ a regression discontinuity design to identify the effect of worker unionization on bondholders in bankruptcy states. Closely won union elections lead to significant bond value losses, especially when firms approach bankruptcy, have underfunded pension plans, and operate in non-RTW law states. Unionization is associated with longer, more convoluted, and costlier bankruptcy court proceedings. Unions further depress bondholders' recovery values as they are assigned seats on unsecured creditors' committees.

Notes:

Print version record

September 2017.