We investigate the relationship between co-determination at the plant level and paid vacation in Germany. From a legal perspective, works councils have no impact on vacation entitlements, but they can affect their use. Employing data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), we find that male...

Recent research has shown that the unexplained gender wage gap is smaller in establishments where a works council is present. The finding raises the question of whether establishment-level codetermination reduces gender wage discrimination or whether it reduces a wage differential that reflects...

We estimate of the determinants of performance appraisal, profit sharing and employee share ownership schemes for a representative sample of German establishments. The results demonstrate that foreign owned establishments make more use of each of these HRM practices than domestically owned...

Variable Pay Systems or Pay for performance suppose variable additional components to regular wages connected, for example, with the evolution of the firm objectives or with the evolution of the individual features and productivity. These forms of variable remuneration have had a growing...

The discussion about employee representation on supervisory boards has received much attention from scholars and politicians around the world. We provide new insights to this ongoing debate by employing power indices from game theory to examine the "real" power of employees on boards and its...

Using a microeconomic model and data from the Establishment Panel of the German Institute for Employment Research, we analyze the optimal establishment size against the background of rent-seeking workers and the influence of works councils. The theoretical part shows that establishment size has...

We analyze the relationship between board-level codetermination and shareholder value. We use a unique dataset of listed German companies that enables us to identify heterogeneous aspects of codetermination and overcome otherwise common identification issues. We find that codetermination reduces...

We analyze the effects of supervisory board size and composition on the valuation and performance of all German firms listed in the DAX, MDAX and SDAX over the period 1998-2007 (n=294 companies with 2,382 firm-year-observations). Controlling for a large number of other (potential) determinants...

Die Institution Betriebsrat zeichnet sich angesichts des starken ökonomischen und technisch-organisatorischen Wandels in den letzten zwei Jahrzehnten durch eine relativ hohe Kontinuität aus. Die Betriebsratsforschung hat in dieser Zeit einen Aufschwung erfahren. Neue Fragestellungen wurden...

This paper focuses on the links between labor market institutions and offshoring, with specific reference to the role of codetermination in shaping the international operations of German firms. We use case studies to illustrate how works councils deal with three important aspects of offshoring...