This paper commences with a survey of international trends in union membership, union density and collective bargaining, while focusing on the comparative position of trade unions in Germany. The author considers three hypotheses concerning the development of unionism in recent decades. The...

We investigate the empirical determinants of social pacts over the 1970–2004 period. We adopt a political economy approach, showing that governments are more likely to sign a pact when the cost of a conflict with trade unions is relatively larger. Such a cost depends on macroeconomic variables...

The chapter restates Tarantelli’s approach to macroeconomic stabilisation and the role of wage bargaining institutions. It also discusses the patterns and variation in the institutional make-up of wage bargaining since 1980, documenting the evolution of the social pacts stipulated in Europe...