It seems that the smaller Member States should not be very happy with the draft Constitution presented at the Thessaloniki European Council with respect to the three major issues discussed - the permanent President of the European Council, the size and composition of the Commission and the...

Employees participation has been identified as a main criteria for a successful implementation of new production systems. However, participation on workplace level does not only requireappropriate formal structures. The initial thesis of this contribution is that it is not sufficient tojust give...

Drawing on analysis of 2004 and 2011 WERS data and extensive case studies of employee consultation bodies, this paper highlights major problems with the regulatory design and enforcement of the Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations 2004 and advocates reforms to improve their...

Corporate governance - the way that major businesses are run - has been of in-creasing concern in recent years. Financial scandals in companies like Enron and WorldCom, as well as similar problems in Europe, have resulted in most major countries introducing corporate governance codes. However,...

In a survey published in the British Journal of Industrial Relations, Frege (2002) evaluates research on the German works council from the perspective of several disciplines, including economics. Ultimately, she concludes that economic analysis of the works council has reached a ?dead end?. The...

We present the first panel estimates of the productivity effects of the unique German institution of parity, board-level co-determination. Although our data span two severe recessions when labour hoarding costs of co-determination are probably highest, and the panel is too short to capture the...

Using a large panel data set we investigate whether works councils act as sand or grease in the operation of German firms. Stochastic production frontier analysis indicates that establishments with and without a works council do not exhibit significant differences in efficiency.

Keeping up with rapid technological change necessitates constant innovation. Successful innovation depends on both incumbent workers' knowledge, based on experience, and knowledge about the latest technologies, along with the skills needed to implement them. Both of these knowledge-based...

Germany's system of economic and political governance strongly relies on group decision-making and consensus to solve economic issues. This approach relates to a wide spectrum of decisions, including the social partners with the trade unions and the employers' associations in wage formation, the...

This paper contributes to the empirical literature on the co-determination - firm performance nexus by using a new type of data that combines information on the co-determination status of enterprises from a commercial data base and supplementary information collected from the firms with...