This paper presents the first comparative analysis of the decline in collective bargaining in two European countries where that decline has been most pronounced. Using workplace-level data and a common model, we present decompositions of changes in collective bargaining and worker representation...

Spatial variance in union membership has been attributed to the favourable attitudes that persist in areas with an historical legacy of trade unionism. Within the UK, villages and towns located in areas once dominated coalmining remain among the strongest and durable bases for the trade union...

Do unions promote creative destruction? In this paper we apply a shift-share approach and historical unionisation data from 1918 to study the impact of changes in regional unionisation on regional wage and productivity growth and job creation and destruction during the period 2003-2012. As local...

We exploit tax-induced exogenous variance in the price of union membership to identify the effects of changes in firm union density on firm productivity and wages in the population of Norwegian firms over the period 2001 to 2012. Increases in union density lead to substantial increases in firm...

What type of businesses do unions target for organizing? A dynamic model of the union organizing process is constructed to answer this question. A union monitors establishments in an industry to learn about their productivity and decides which ones to organize and when. An establishment becomes...

Using administrative linked employer-employee data for Norway we estimate the impact of changes in tax subsidies for union membership on individuals' membership probabilities. Increased subsidisation of the union good increases union take-up, while increased union fees reduce the demand for...

Building on the right-to-manage model of collective bargaining, this paper tries to infer union power from the observed results in wage setting. It derives a time-varying indicator of union strength and confronts it with annual data for Germany. The results show that union power was relatively...

Industrial relations are in flux in many nations, perhaps most notably in Germany and the Britain. That said, comparatively little is known in any detail of the changing pattern of the institutions of collective bargaining and worker representation in Germany and still less in both countries...

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...

This paper addresses the design of the machinery of collective bargaining from the perspective of the needs of microeconomic and macroeconomic flexibility. In the former context, greater attention is given over to enterprise flexibility than external adjustment. In the latter context, close...