Cross-country data are used to establish perceived shortfalls in employee involvement based on the responses of employee representatives in EU establishments with formal workplace employee representation. The desire for greater involvement is smaller where workplace representation is via works...

This paper brings together two factors deemed important correlates of firm performance: advanced management practices and works councils. The country sample comprises nations where workplace representation is via a works council. The Management Questionnaire of the 2013 European Company Survey...

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...

In this paper we investigate the process of job search, using a unique, large-scale data set for Portugal that allows us to assess the effect of job search methods on escape rates from unemployment and, in a new departure, the impact of job-finding methods used by the unemployed on earnings. In...

German law guaranteeing works councils is not a datum. The thrust of legislation has changed significatly on a number of occasions since 1920. The most recent legal change in the form of the Works Constitution Reform Act marks a controversial swing in favor of works council formation and...

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 sharp break with past German research, some recent estimates have suggested that plants with work councils have 25 to 30 per cent higher productivity than their works-council-free counterparts. Such findings can only serve to buttress the strong theoretical and policy interest in the German...

In its 1998 final report, the German Co-determination Commission identified a large and growing sector of the economy in which employees are covered neither by participation on company boards nor through the vehicle of works councils. The Commission argued that the steady erosion of...