@TechReport{iza:izadps:dp5222,
            	author={Goerke, Laszlo and Pannenberg, Markus},
            	title={Trade Union Membership and Dismissals},
            	year={2010},
	month={Sep},
            	institution={Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)},
            	address={Bonn},
            	type={IZA Discussion Paper},
            	number={5222},
            	url={https://www.iza.org/publications/dp5222},
	abstract={In Germany, there is no trade union membership wage premium, while the membership fee amounts to 1% of the gross wage. Therefore, prima facie, there are strong incentives to free-ride on the benefits of trade unionism. We establish empirical evidence for a private gain from trade union membership which has hitherto not been documented: in West Germany, union members are less likely to lose their jobs than non-members. In particular, using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel we can show that roughly 50% of the observed raw differential in individual dismissal rates can be explained by the estimated average partial effect of union membership.},
	keywords={dismissal;free-riding;trade union membership;survey data},
            }