This article presents the first nonparametric test whether German works councils go hand-in-hand with higher labour productivity or not. It distinguishes between establishments that are covered by collective bargaining or not. Results from a Kolmogorov-Smirnov test for first-order stochastic...

This study presents the first empirical test with German establishment level data of a hypothesis derived by Helpman et al. (2004) in a model that explains the decision of heterogeneous firms to serve foreign markets either through exports of foreign direct investment: only the more productive...

Eine empirische Untersuchung mit einem großen Betriebsdatensatz macht deutlich, dass direkte Arbeitnehmerpartizipation in Form von Gruppenarbeit und regelmäßigen Informationsgesprächen mit Mitarbeitern in wesentlich mehr Industriebetrieben zu finden ist als repräsentative Partizipation...

Prominent reasons why people make more or less money in the labor market include personal characteristics of the employee (e.g., human capital or gender), job characteristics (working conditions demanding compensating wage differentials), and characteristics of the employer (e.g., industry or...

We estimate the effects of works councils on productivity, 1997 - 2000, using the IAB Establishment Panel, a nationally representative German data set. We recoup the works council effect by estimating translog production functions, stochastic frontier production functions, and a model in first...

An empirical analysis of various waves of the ALLBUS social survey shows that the level and the structure of unionization has become more and more similar in eastern and western Germany in the period 1992 to 2000. The originally high level of union density in eastern Germany has dropped below...

This article tests the theory recently put forward by Edward Lazear that individuals with competence in many skills should have a higher probability of being self-employed than others. The empirical results for Germany support this jack-of-all-trades view.

In her recent survey, Frege (2002) concludes that economic analysis of the works council has reached a "dead end". The present treatment offers a different conclusion based on a more encompassing review of the evidence. It will identify three distinct phases in the economic analysis of...