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...

Using linked employer-employee data, this paper estimates the effect of collective bargaining coverage on wages over an interval of continuing decline in unionism. Unobserved firm and worker heterogeneity is dealt with using two establishment sub-samples, comprising collective bargaining joiners...

Reputation indexes of employment protection have proven popular constructs in studies of the covariation of labor market institutions and macroeconomic outcomes. Portugal occupies an unenviable rank order in such measures of the stringency of employment protection. We critique this reputation in...

Although works councils are a core element of the German system of industrial relations, there is little reliable information on their incidence and coverage. This paper uses data from the nationally representative IAB establishment panel to fill this gap. We examine the frequency of works...

In a recent survey, Frege (2002) concludes that economic analysis of the works council has reached a `dead end´. The present treatment offers a different conclusion based on a more encompassing review of the evidence. It will identify three distinct phases in the economic analysis of...

We estimate the effects of works councils on productivity, 1997-2000, using the IAB Establishment Panel, a nationally representative German data set. We recoup the works council effect by estimating translog production functions, stochastic frontier production functions, and a model in first...