Abstract
Two previous studies of bargaining by police and firefighters in New York State, by Kochan and Baderschneider and by Butler and Ehrenberg, agreed there had been a positive narcotic effect in the early years under the state's Taylor Act, but they disagreed over the existence and direction of any narcotic effect during the later years. This paper refines the test for determining the presence and direction of a narcotic effect and applies this test to the New York data analyzed in the previous studies and to new data on public sector bargaining in Iowa, Indiana, and Pennsylvania. The results suggest that the troublesome positive narcotic effect disappears after the first years of bargaining under a public sector law.
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