In a two-country model with trade driven by comparative advantages, it is considered how imperfectly competitive labour markets are affected by lower frictions in international goods trade. Easier goods trading is equivalent to increased mobility of employment across countries and thus a change...

Even when international product market integration is taking place between fairly similar countries with low labour mobility, it may have important effects for labour markets by increasing the mobility of jobs. This creates both opportunities through exports and threats from imports. Is there...

The paper studies the major institutional changes that are at the root of the increase in the west European unemployment rate in the last quartercentury from below 3 percent to 11 percent. The institutional characteristics of wage bargaining, the tax wedge and the legal rules hamper the...

Bei einer repräsentativen Befragung im Rahmen des IAB-Betriebspanels 2005 gaben 13 Prozent der Betriebe mit Tarifbindung an, dass für sie Öffnungsklauseln im Tarifvertrag bestehen (viele weitere wussten darüber nicht Bescheid). Rund die Hälfte dieser Betriebe hatte davon Gebrauch gemacht....

There is a growing concern about collective wage agreement and employment dynamics in Germany. In this paper, evidence is provided on the way collective wage agreements affect the adjustment of working hours, employment and other production factors when firms from the service sector are faced...

Der Beitrag untersucht die Verbreitung von Tarifverträgen in Dienstleistungsunternehmen sowie deren Wirkungen auf die Beschäftigungspolitik im Falle von Nachfrageschwankungen. Der empirische Teil basiert auf der ZEW/Creditreform Konjunkturumfrage bei unternehmensnahen...

Repräsentative Daten des IAB-Betriebspanels für das Jahr 2002 zeigen, dass im privaten Sektor fast die Hälfte der westdeutschen, aber nicht einmal ein Fünftel der ostdeutschen Betriebe mit Tarifbindung über Tarif entlohnen. Das Ausmaß der übertariflichen Entlohnung in diesen Betrieben...

In oligopolistic industries that are unionised and may be affected by offshoring, falling offshoring costs have a moderating effect on trade unions. They will accept lower sector wages in order to discourage mobile forms from leaving the country. Since such wages are independent of the workers'...

Using German establishment data, this study finds that the share of blue-collar workers, an outdated production technology and a high-wage policy increase the probability that employers regard the threat of dismissal as a suitable incentive. A participatory HRM policy, the incidence of a works...

Despite declining bargaining power, unions continue to generate a wage premium. Some feel collective bargaining has had its day. Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have recently called for the removal of bargaining rights from workers in the name of wage and employment flexibility, yet...