This paper traces the profound decline in German unionism over the course of the last three decades. Today just one in five workers is a union member, and it is now moot whether this degree of penetration is consistent with a corporatist model built on encompassing unions. The decline in union...

The wage curve identified by Blanchflower and Oswald (1994) postulates that the wage level is a decreasing function of the regional unemployment rate. In testing this hypothesis, most empirical studies have not taken into account that differences in the institutional framework may have an impact...

Using data from the representative IAB Establishment Panel, this paper charts changes in the two main pillars of the German IR model over the last 20 years. It shows that collective bargaining coverage and worker representation via works councils have substantially fallen outside the public...