ILR International Labour Review International Labour Review 0020-7780 1564-913X 10.1111/ilr.12373 Trade unions and income inequality: Evidence from a panel of European countries MONTEBELLO Roberta roberta.montebello.16@um.edu.mt SPITERI Jonathan jonathan.v.spiteri@um.edu.mt VON BROCKDORFF Philip philip.von-brockdorff@um.edu.mt Faculty of Economics, Management and Accountancy, University of Malta 02 09 2023 162 3 10.1111/ilr.v162.3 481 503 © The authors 2022 Journal compilation © International Labour Organization 2023

This article examines the relationship between trade unions and rising income inequality observed in advanced economies in recent decades. The role of trade unions in addressing increasing income inequality has been overlooked in empirical studies, despite its theoretical ambiguity. The baseline empirical model, estimated for 26 European countries from 2005 to 2018, specifies income inequality as a function of the trade union density rate, its squared value, and a set of control variables. Labour market institutions, other than unions, are incorporated into the model to assess the distributional effects of union density within the entire institutional framework. The authors find that union density has a statistically significant and persistent inverted U‐shaped relationship with income inequality.

 income inequality trade unions labour market institutions Europe

 

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