Given the recent financial crisis, the German labour market performs relatively well. This has not been the case until recent years: collective bargaining and the rigid system of wage setting have been often cited as one of the reasons for Germany's high structural unemployment. Contrary, a...

Abstract This paper analyses the impact of opening clauses in German collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) on job flows. Opening clauses should provide firms with more flexibility in economic crises. Therefore, firms operating under a CBA with opening clauses are expected to have lower job...

Summary The introduction of opening clauses in collective wage agreements allowing firms to deviate from their collective bargaining agreements has become widely accepted for the last fifteen years. With respect to the flexibility agreed through collective bargaining, the distinctions between...