Labour Unrest and the Quality of Production: Evidence from the Construction Equipment Resale Market
利用建筑设备转售市场数据，发现世界最大建筑机械制造商卡特彼勒在1990年代发生合同纠纷的工厂所生产的设备，在转售时被显著折价，且转售更频繁、评估更差、标价更低，表明劳工动荡降低了产品质量，仅此一项就造成至少4亿美元的服务流损失。
This paper examines the construction equipment resale market to assess whether equipment produced by the world's largest manufacturer of construction machinery, Caterpillar, experienced lower product quality in facilities that underwent contract disputes during the 1990's. Analysis of auction data reveals that resale market participants significantly discounted machines produced in these dispute-affected facilities. Additionally, pieces of equipment produced in facilities undergoing unrest were resold more often, received worse appraisal reports, and had lower list prices. Taken together, the evidence supports the hypothesis that workmanship at dispute-affected facilities declined and that the resulting impact on the economic quality of the equipment produced was significant. The dispute was associated with at least $400 million in lost service flows due to inferior quality equipment alone. Copyright 2008, Wiley-Blackwell.