In order to reduce unemployment, it is often recommended that industry-level wage bargaining in Germany should be … into the comparison, the unformly superior employment performance of a decentralized wage bargaining system is questioned … bargaining takes account of the long-run employment consequences of wage setting. …

This paper examines critically the system of industry-level wage bargaining in Germany. More specifically, it shows … that the importance of industry-level wage bargaining declines in Germany and that one major reason for this development is … exhibits some disadvantages. We compare the employment effects of industry-level and firm-level wage bargaining in a …