Most of the literature on the effects of German works councils does not deal with the issue of potential endogeneity of works council existence. Exploiting exogenous variation in works council authority stemming from a 2001 reform of the German Works Constitution Act, I apply a regression...

This analysis characterizes empirically how good labour relations can alleviate the negative impact on productivity of regulatory constraints or workforce opposition. Our evidence of good labour relations lies in the existence of binding collective agreements, at the firm or at the industry...