An Economics Reading List

Unions

Freedman, Richard and James Medoff, What do Unions Do?


Hoxie, Robert F., “Trade Unionism in the United States,” 1914

    In 1914, Robert F. Hoxie of the University of Chicago published this seminal article in the Journal of Political Economy. By characterizing and distinguishing the different kinds of unions, Hoxie made sense of the welter of contradictory views of them. Although he died before he was able to complete his own research agenda, his article created an academic stir and gave rise to the fruitful scientific study of the topic during the 20th century. (See also the CEE article, Labor Unions, by Morgan O. Reynolds, for just a few of the results.) Difficulty Level 1: College