Collective bargaining in Germany takes place either at the industry level or at the firm level; collective bargaining coverage is much higher than union density; and not all employees in a covered firm are necessarily covered. This institutional setup suggests to explicitly distinguish union...

This paper investigates the increase in wage inequality, the decline in collective bargaining, and the development of the gender wage gap in West Germany between 2001 and 2006. Based on detailed linked employer-employee data, we show that wage inequality is rising strongly – driven not only by...

This paper provides estimates of the union wage gap in Portugal, a nation until recently lacking independent data on union density at firm level. Having estimated nonlinear and linear estimates of the effect of union density on the wage gap, the next stage of the analysis seeks to account for...

We estimate the impact of union density on wages using Portuguese matched employer-employee-contract data, extending Gelbach’s (2016) omitted variable bias decomposition procedure to obtain the contribution of worker, firm, and job-title heterogeneity to the union wage premium. The principal...

The objective of this paper is to analyse the flexibility opportunities of firms to respond to increasing labour market requirements and heterogeneity. Thereby, we focus on two groups of workers and two kinds of management events. The two groups of workers are female and older workers, while...

This article aims at describing and discussing the development of wage inequality in Germany in relation to the decline in collective wage bargaining, as this could be the institutional cause for the development since the 1990s. At the same time, the polarization hypothesis is discussed. Wage...

Seit Januar 2015 gilt in Deutschland ein gesetzlicher Mindestlohn von 8,50 € pro Stunde. Die Mindestlohneinführung ist Teil eines Gesetzes zur Stärkung der Tarifautonomie, das darauf abzielt, die Tarifbindung wieder zu erhöhen und Allgemeinverbindlicherklärungen zu erleichtern. In diesem...

This article investigates the relation linking single-employer bargaining and within-firm wage dispersion - a significant driver of overall wage inequality. The study considers six European economies (Belgium, Spain, Germany, France, the Czech Republic and the UK), featuring different collective...

Es gibt gute Gründe, die jahrzehntelang eingespielten Muster der Tarifpolitik kritisch zu hinterfragen. Für einen besonders problematischen Aspekt liefert das aktuelle Jahr 2019 ein gutes Beispiel: Die Ergebnisse von Tarifvertragsverhandlungen weisen aus betriebswirtschaftlicher Sicht ein...

Using matched employer-employee-contract data for Portugal – a country with near-universal union coverage – we find evidence of a sizable effect of union affiliation on wages. Gelbach's (2016) decomposition procedure is next deployed to ascertain the contributions of worker, firm, match, and...