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...

This study examines the potential impact of works councils and unions on the deployment of fixed-term contracts and agency temps. We report inter al. that works councils are associated with a higher number of temporary agency workers when demand volatility is high while the opposite holds for...

This report consists of a comprehensive overview of labour market institutions in the small Pacific island countries in order to propose recommendations to improve the performance of their labour markets. We pay particular attention to three countries: Fiji, Palau and Papua New Guinea. We focus...

This study provides empirical evidence for the economic rationality of wage rigidities. Theoretically wage rigidities can result from contracts, implicit contracts, from efficiency wages and from insider-outsider behaviour. Based on a survey of 801 firms strong support has been found for...

The Greek industrial relations system for the past decades, mainly in the private sector, has been based on Law 1876 of 1990, which introduced free collective bargaining and independent dispute resolution. Due to the financial crisis, new legislation modified the existing legal framework and led...

Originally, anchoring labour rights to the existence of a personal relationship of subordination was functional to prevent the greater bargaining strength of the employed being disproportionately reflected in the terms and conditions regulating the provision of labour. This does not seem anymore...

This article discusses the relationship between Japanese labor law and employment customs, building on this rationalistic understanding of the Japanese employment customs. Our basic conclusion is as follows. The Japanese employment custom developed naturally through an agreement among the...

How much value does collective bargaining add to the working conditions already established in general labour law? In this paper we propose a methodology to address this question: we compare the specific contents of collective agreements (except minimum wages) to their equivalent norms set by...

This article is an edited transcript of a lecture on the Employment Contract presented to a conference of state law judges. Part I introduces a model of a well-functioning labor market, which provides all employee benefits, and only those employee benefits, that employees value more than it...

This article is an edited transcript of a lecture on the Employment Contract presented to a conference of state law judges. Part I introduces a model of a well-functioning labor market, which provides all employee benefits, and only those employee benefits, that employees value more than it...