2008), 'The wage impact of trade unions in the UK public and private sectors', Economica, forthcoming

Oswald and the editor Alan Manning and two referees. Alex Bryson thanks the ESRC for financial support (grant number RES-000-23-1603) 1This paper draws attention to a trend hitherto unnoticed, namely an increase in the size of the union membership wage premium in the UK public sector relative to the private sector. This finding is surprising because it implies that union bargaining power has held up reasonably well in the public sector, despite the fact that union density has declined at a similar rate to the decline in the private sector. It is also surprising because it seems implausible that there should be a substantial union wage premium in the public sector. Unlike in the private sector, the majority of public sector workers have pay set directly through collective bargaining or through Pay Review Bodies, whether or not they are union members. In seeking to account for these findings we explore a number of possible explanations. We establish the link between union membership and collective bargaining coverage in the two sectors to see whether membership is more closely aligned with coverage in the public sector, perhaps resulting in a higher premium. We consider the possibility tha