Germany, we find that works councils affect wage growth only in combination with collective bargaining. Wage adjustments to … positive and negative economic shocks are not always symmetric. Only under sectoral bargaining there is a (nearly symmetric …) reaction to rising and falling unemployment. In contrast, wage growth in establishments without collective bargaining adjusts …

centralized bargaining agreements indeed have economically and statistically significantly larger total factor productivities and … scale elasticities than comparable establishments outside the centralized bargaining regime. …