This paper uses data from a nationally representative panel of establishments to estimate the effects of German works councils on firm performance, 1997 - 2000. We analyze the impact of this institution on sales and sales growth using OLC and fixed effect estimates of a translog production...

Obgleich die Betriebsräte ein Kernelement des bundesdeutschen Systems der industriellen Beziehungen darstellen, gibt es kaum zuverlässige Informationen über ihre Verbreitung. Der folgende Beitrag verwendet Daten des IAB-Betriebspanels um die Verbreitung von Betriebsräten in unterschiedlichen...

This paper assesses the decline in collective bargaining coverage in Germany. Using repeat cross-section and longitudinal data from the IAB Establishment Panel, it indicates the overwhelming importance of behavioral as opposed to compositional change in this process. Further, in the first use of...

Despite its seeming lack of attractiveness to other countries, the German system of quasi-parity codetermination at company level has thus far held up fairly well. We recount the theoretical arguments for and against this form of codetermination, and survey the evolving empirical evidence as to...

The effect of collective bargaining on innovation has long been in dispute. At the level of theory, the hold-up problem has been used to justify positive as well as negative effects of unionism. At the empirical level, although some would consider the North American evidence as cut and dried,...

Recent studies have pointed to the association between declining collective bargaining coverage and rising overall wage inequality. This association holds more or less across-the-board, at least for broad swathes of recent history. That said, the exact contribution of deununionization is a...