International trade and economic integration when labour markets are generally unionised

The paper develops a theoretical framework in which international trade occurs between economies with imperfectly competitive product markets and unionised labour markets. We are able to investigate the impact on both product and labour market outcomes of increased product market integration across the trading economies. Our strongest result is the finding that increased integration leads monopoly unions to set higher Nash equilibrium wages. In other words, a more competitive product market does not necessarily generate a more competitive labour market.