Differential enforcement of employment protection by explicit design of the legislation, for example through exemptions for small firms, has been exploited in a growing body of research. However, little is known about the effects of differential enforcement that is not defined by the letter of...

Differential enforcement of employment protection by explicit design of the legislation, for example, through exemptions for small firms, has been exploited in a growing body of research. However, little is known about the effects of differential enforcement that is not defined by the letter of...

We examine the wage effects of perceived and objective job security in Germany and the UK, and find that job security influences the wage development in both countries. We find that British workers react slightly more strongly to perceived security signals, and that the objective job security...

This paper presents an innovation driven endogenous growth model, where firms and unions bargain over wages. We find that the degree of centralization of the bargaining structure plays a crucial rule for economic performance. Central bargaining, which incorporates the leapfrogging externality...

In many countries, the minimum wages and working conditions set in collective bargaining contracts negotiated by a limited set of employers and unions are subsequently extended to all the employees in an industry. Those extensions ensure common working conditions within the industry, limit wage...

Several countries extend collective bargaining agreements to entire sectors, therefore binding non-subscriber workers and employers. These extensions may address coordination issues but may also distort competition by imposing sector-specific minimum wages and other work conditions that are not...

Many governments extend the coverage of collective agreements to workers and employ- ers that were not involved in their bargaining. These extensions may address coordination issues but may also distort competition by imposing sector-specific minimum wages and other work conditions that are not...

While trade unions have been studied in detail, there is virtually no economics research on employer associations (EAs), trade unions' counterparts in many countries. However, besides conducting collective bargaining, EAs perform several other activities that can in uence economic outcomes,...