This study examines the potential impact of works councils and unions on the deployment of fixed-term contracts and agency temps. We report inter al. that works councils are associated with a higher number of temporary agency workers when demand volatility is high while the opposite holds for...

The German law on co-determination at the plant level (Betriebsverfassungsgesetz) stipulates that works councilors are neither to be financially rewarded nor penalized for their activities. This regulation contrasts with publicized instances of excessive payments. The divergence has sparked a...

Germany has always been one of the prime examples of institutional complementarities between social insurance, a rather passive welfare state, strong employment protection and collective bargaining that stabilize diversified quality production. This institutional arrangement was criticized for...

The paper examines real and nominal wage rigidities. We estimate a switching regime model, in which the observed distribution of individual wage changes, computed from West German register data for 1976-1997, is generated by simultaneous processes of real, nominal or no wage rigidity, and...

In der Februarausgabe 2016 veröffentlichte der Wirtschaftsdienst den Aufsatz: "Streiks und die Zuverlässigkeit der Verkehrsbedienung" vom Wissenschaftlichen Beirat beim Bundesminister für Verkehr und digitale Infrastruktur. Dazu erscheint diese Replik.

Mit der Privatisierung und der Aufhebung des Prinzips der Tarifeinheit haben die Arbeitskämpfe im Verkehrswesen stark zugenommen. Die Zuverlässigkeit der Verkehrsbedienung ist gefährdet und unbeteiligte Dritte haben oft das Nachsehen. Der Wissenschaftliche Beirat beim Bundesminister für...

We analyse how countries' innovation outcomes are affected by national legislations of worker participation to corporate governance. We develop a model of employee representation laws (ERL) and innovation in the presence of incomplete labour contracts and predict heterogeneous ERL effects across...

Temporary agency employment has grown steadily in most European countries over the past three decades as part of the general trend towards increased employment flexibility. Yet to this day, it remains an open question what drives the demand for temporary agency workers. The paper examines,...