Commentary: Professionalism, Unionization, and Physiciansʼ Strikes

Rest Unemployment and Unionization∗

This paper examines the impact of unions on unemployment and wages in a dynamic equilibrium search model. Unions impose a minimum wage on employers and ration jobs to ensure that their most senior members are employed. A minimum wage policy is optimal for a utilitarian union that cares equally about its employed and unemployed members. The combination of a minimum wage and rationing by seniorit...

Commentary: The relationship status of digital media and professionalism: it's complicated.

The rising popularity of digital applications, such as social networking, media share sites, and blogging, has significantly affected how medical trainees interact with educators, colleagues, and the public. Despite the increased popularity and use of such applications amongst the current generation of trainees, medical educators have little evidence or guidance about preventing misuse and ensu...

Unions, Bargaining and Strikes

Commentary: Accurate medical student performance evaluations and professionalism assessment: "Yes, we can!".

In this issue, Brenner and colleagues report a correlation between the frequency of negative comments in the "dean's letter" and future problems during a psychiatry residency program. Their study makes an important contribution to the body of literature on factors that predict professionalism-related performance issues during residency and suggests the importance of dependable data that can be ...

'bargaining and Strikes

A recent literature has shown that asymmetric information about a firm's profitability does not by itself explain strikes of substantial length if the firm and workers can bargain very frequently without commitment. In this paper we show that substantial strikes are possible if (a) there is a small (but not insignificant) delay between offers; and (b) a strike-bound firm may experience a declin...