While works councils provide a highly developed mechanism to promote workplace democracy, research on their consequences has been dominated by economic aspects. This study brings a new perspective to the understanding of works councils by examining their influence on workers' political behavior....

Using data from the representative IAB Establishment Panel, this paper charts changes in the two main pillars of the German IR model over the last 20 years. It shows that collective bargaining coverage and worker representation via works councils have substantially fallen outside the public...

Recent empirical research generally finds evidence of positive economic effects of works councils, for example with regard to productivity and - with some limitations - to profits. This makes it necessary to explain why employers’ associations have reservations against works councils. On the...

We estimate dynamic effects of works councils on labor productivity using newly available information from West German establishment panel data. Conditioning on plant fixed effects and control variables, we find negative productivity effects during the first five years after council...

This chapter reviews research on the linkages between corporate globalization and worker representation. Studies have identified various transmission channels through which the activities of foreign multinational companies (MNCs) affect host-country institutions of union and non-union...