Entrepreneurship is usually indentified as an important determinant of aggregate productivity and long-term growth. The determinants of entrepreneurship, nevertheless, are not entirely understood. A recent literature has linked entrepreneurship to the development of the justice system. This...

Labor courts play an important role in determining the effective level of labor market regulation in Germany, but their application of law may not be even-handed. Based on a simple theoretical model and a new panel data set, we identify a nomination bias in labor court activity - that is, court...

A strike insurance is integrated into a model based on one-sided private information of the firm. It is shown that the strike insurance will increase the dispute level if payments to the insurance are lump-sum or if payments from the insurance are proportional to wages. However, if wages affect...

This paper investigates the increase in wage inequality, the decline in collective bargaining, and the development of the gender wage gap in West Germany between 2001 and 2006. Based on detailed linked employer-employee data, we show that wage inequality is rising strongly – driven not only by...

In many countries, an expired labor contract is automatically extended during the often protracted delay before the new contract is signed. Our theoretical model focuses on macroeconomic factors in explaining the delay. It emphasizes the importance of the realized nominal and real shocks, and of...

This paper investigates the increase in wage inequality, the decline in collective bargaining, and the development of the gender wage gap in West Germany between 2001 and 2006. Based on detailed linked employer-employee data, we show that wage inequality is rising strongly - driven not only by...

Western countries differ greatly in the extent to which single mothers participate in the labor market. Using LIS data for 15 countries, I propose and estimate a simple structural model of labor supply that incorporates the main variables that influence the work decision for single mothers. The...

In this paper we challenge the conventional view that strikes are caused by asymmetric information regarding firm profitability such that union members are uninformed. Instead, we build an expressive model of strikes where the perception of unfairness provides the expressive benefit of voting...

This paper establishes theoretical and empirical linkages between union wage setting and the structure of the wage distribution. Theoretically, we identify conditions under which a right-to-manage model implies compression of the wage distribution in the union sector relative to the nonunion...

Using international data, we investigate whether the quality of industrial relations matters for the macro economy. We measure industrial relations inversely by strikes -- which proxy we cross-check with an industrial relations reputation indicator -- and our macro performance outcome is the...