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...

The paper focuses on the issue of employee voice during restructuring processes. The notion of “capability for voice” is mobilized to assess to what extent employees are able (and allowed) to express their viewpoints and make them count in the course of corporate restructurings. At first the...

This article examines the relationship between works councils and the closure of manufacturing establishments in Germany. The relationship varies according to circumstances and type of establishment. For the subsample of single-establishment firms, the estimates show that works council presence...

We define worker representation, identify the factors that determine demand for it among workers and employers, discuss difficulties in supplying worker representation, and reflect on the implications of worker representation for worker welfare and the behavior and performance of employers.