We study the descriptive and substantive representation of workers through worker representatives, focusing on the selection of German works council representatives and their impact on worker outcomes. Becoming a professional representative leads to substantial wage gains for the elected,...

We provide a comprehensive overview of codetermination, i.e., worker representation in firms' governance and management. We cover the institution's history, implementation, and the best available evidence on its economic impacts. We argue that existing quasi-experimental estimates suggest that...

German law guaranteeing works councils is not a datum. The thrust of legislation has changed significantly on a number of occasions since 1920. The most recent legal change in the form of the Works Constitution Reform Act marks a controversial swing in favor of works council formation and...

We present the first panel estimates of the productivity effects of the unique German institution of parity, board-level co-determination. Although our data span two severe recessions when labour hoarding costs of co-determination are probably highest, and the panel is too short to capture the...

Drawing on evidence from the United States and Germany, this paper offers a survey of the effects of worker representation (in unions and works councils) and innovative work practices on firm performance. The focus is on the growing links between these two historically separate literatures. The...

This paper analyzes the role of works councils as gatekeepers safeguarding employee's interests in the adoption of monitoring practices. We first introduce a formal model predicting that (i) the introduction of monitoring practices leads to a stronger increase (or weaker decrease) in job...

We analyse in what way co-determination affects non-compliance with the German minimum wage, which was introduced in 2015. The Works Constitution Act (WCA), the law regulating co-determination at the plant level, provides works councils with indirect means to ensure compliance with the statutory...

While works councils provide a highly developed mechanism to promote workplace democracy, research on their consequences has been dominated by economic aspects. This study brings a new perspective to the understanding of works councils by examining their influence on workers' political behavior....

This paper investigates trends in collective bargaining and worker representation in Germany from 2000 to 2008. It seeks to update and widen earlier analyses pointing to a decline in collective bargaining, while providing more information on the dual system as a whole. Using data from the IAB...