In the first part of the paper, I compare the pre-displacement earnings of
workers displaced from distressed firms to the wages of non-displaced workers.
The results suggest that displaced workers suffer losses that amount to ll% of
their earnings before the actual separation occurs. The second part of the paper
concerns union effects on wages in situations of long-run declining demand. The
findings suggest that for females unions "harvest" the quasi-rents of declining
firms by rising the union-nonunion wage gap.