Using both household and linked employer-employee data for Germany, we assess the effects of non-union representation in the form of works councils on (1) individual sickness absence rates and (2) a subjective measure of personnel problems due to sickness absence as perceived by a firm's...

Using both household and linked employer-employee data for Germany, we assess the effects of non-union representation in the form of works councils on (1) individual sickness absence rates and (2) a subjective measure of personnel problems due to sickness absence as perceived by a firm's...

Using both household and linked-employer-employee data we study the effects of works councils on individual sickness absence rates and a subjective measure of personnel problems due to absenteeism in Germany. We find that the existence of a works council is positively correlated with the...

This paper indicates that the extent of collective bargaining coverage in an industry may depend on the differences in firms productivity levels within the industry. Less pronounced differences in productivity levels make it easier to design collective wage contracts that are accepted by a wider...

We analyze the offshorability of jobs using the German Qualifications and Career Survey. The paper differentiates between outsourcing potential and international tradability and systematically uses a large set of potential determinants of organizational and spatial relocation derived from the...

We analyse the treatment effects of a large scale German active labour market program. Modellprojekte Bürgerarbeit is a modified public employment scheme, with an activation period as a first step. Using data from individual employment records we perform matching estimations to analyse the...

Traditionally, it has been argued that profit sharing can increase employment and welfare because it lowers marginal labour costs without reducing labour income. In this paper, we show that profit sharing can also represent a Pareto-improvement if labour supply is excessive due to relative...

Subjective well-being (SWB) is generally argued to rise with relative income. However, direct evidence is scarce on whether and how intensively individuals undertake income comparisons, to whom they relate, and what they perceive their relative income to be. In this paper, novel data with direct...

We investigate whether working time is related to the intensity of income comparisons and relative income. Our simple theoretical model demonstrates that the effects of relative income concerns depend on whether an individual can choose contractual working hours and/or overtime. In the empirical...

A large number of articles have analysed 'the one constant' in the economic effects of trade unions, namely that union bargaining reduces employment growth by two to four percentage points per year. Evidence is, however, mostly related to Anglo-Saxon countries. We investigate whether a different...