Understanding the Determination of Severance Pay: Mandates, Bargaining, and Unions*
研究了在搜索匹配模型中，工资与遣散费的联合谈判如何决定遣散费水平，发现个人谈判提供完全保险，而工会因提高工资导致就业减少，需要更高的遣散费。
Abstract A substantial share of severance payments derives from private contracts or collective agreements. In this paper, we study the determination of these payments. We analyze joint bargaining over wages and severance payments in a search‐and‐matching model with risk‐averse workers. Individual bargaining results in levels of severance pay that provide full insurance, but also depend on unemployment benefits and job‐finding rates. Unions also choose full insurance. Because their higher wage demands reduce job creation, this requires higher severance pay. Severance pay observed in eight European countries, to which we calibrate the model, lies between predictions from the bargaining and union scenarios.