In the mid ninetees unemployment substantially decreased in some EMU-countries, notably in Ireland, Spain and the Netherlands. One important factor underlying this development is wage moderation. This paper investigates wage formation and wage development. Using a theoretical wage bargaining...

From a detailed study of the yearly wage bargaining rounds in Norway and Sweden, we construct time series of five complemetary coordination indices. Econometrics is used to evaluate the importance of the coordination indicators for our understanding of the changes in the rates of unemployment...