The area-wide wage agreement is at the centre of Germany's system of collective bargaining. In recent years, however, there has been a tendency towards the decentralization of collective bargaining. Individual wage agreements have led to more moderate wage developments, whilst collective...

Redesigning the Welfare State argues that the current high level of unemployment in Germany not only creates a major challenge for the German welfare state, but is to a good extent caused by the way the country's welfare system is designed. - The authors review the public debate on labour market...

Macroeconomics would not be what it is today without Edmund Phelps. This book assembles the field's leading figures to highlight the continuing influence of his ideas from the past four decades. Addressing the most important current debates in macroeconomic theory, it focuses on the rates at...

Since 2003 the German Public Employment Service has been experimenting with the contracting out of various services. One of the new labour market programmes is Personnel Service Agencies, which provide client firms with jobseekers on a temporary assignment basis and are responsible for...

The forces of the market and systems competition bring about economic and social convergence in Europe. There is no need for social policies at the EU level. Social harmonisation would distort migration flows and slow down the speed of economic convergence. National welfare states will be...

International comparisons of labour market institutions and their transfer across boundaries have gained in importance. The paper deals with the question of the best way to proceed in making such comparisons. At the same time the question of the possibilities and limits to institutional transfer...