The first paper (Nicita and Rizzolli 2009) shows that, from a welfare perspective, the virtual strike dominates the standard strike. It is then asked why virtual strikes are so infrequent. The explanation provided is based on the extent of social costs produced by the standard strike and on the unilateral or reciprocal nature of these externalities. Authors have argued that parties lose incentive to conduct a virtual strike precisely when it would be needed the most, i.e. when externalities are significant but unilateral or asymmetrically reciprocal. A regulation forcing parties towards virtual strike would thus seem necessary. Such a regulation should somehow introduce side payments for the virtual strike and/or high penalties for the standard strike, in order to properly align workers’ incentives. However, high penalties would be unenforceable in democratic systems where the right to strike is guaranteed by the Constitution. The paper then comments on the Italian bill on virtual strikes.
In the second paper (Innocenti and Nicita, 2009) authors compare - in the laboratory - stoppage and virtual strike. The experiment confirms that higher wages offered by an employer lead to considerably more costly effort provision. The number of strikes, the level of efforts and average total payoffs are higher under virtual strike than under standard strike. However, when standard strike is associated with reciprocal externalities, it induces higher effort levels, higher payoffs and an extremely reduced number of strikes than virtual strike. It is unclear whether this behavior reflects reciprocity or other forms of social preferences. This might explain why standard strikes rather than virtual ones are generally adopted by workers.

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