Do unions affect innovation in Italy? Evidence from firm-level data

Author(s)
Berton, Fabio
Dughera, Stefano
Date Issued
November 2018
Subjects
Innovazione delle imprese
Sindacato
Abstract
We study the unions-innovation correlation using micro-data on Italian non-agricultural firm. The key finding of the paper is that unionized firms have a higher and statistically significant probability of filing patents than their non-union competitors in Italy. While corroborating the evidence that unionisation does not – generally speaking – inhibit innovation in Europe (while the opposite hold true in North America), our study is the first to show that such effect is unambiguously positive in the Italian pre-crisis context and also that it is far more significant than in the rest of Europe. The result is at odds with the de-unionisation path which has characterised Italy over the last decades and thus needs to be interpreted in terms of policy suggestions.
Citation
Berton F., Dughera S., Ricci A. (2018), Do unions affect innovation in Italy? Evidence from firm-level data, Roma, INAPP, WP, n. 2 <http://oa.inapp.org/xmlui/handle/20.500.12916/278 >
URI
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Working Paper
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