The paper introduces a model of enterprise formation in a unionized economy with labor protection and wage bargaining. Enterprise formation is subject to future market risk and is shaped by labor market institutions in the post-entry stage. The predictions of the model are tested in...

This paper tests the pro-competitive effect of trade in the product and labor markets of UK manufacturing sectors between 1988 and 2003 using a two-stage estimation procedure. In the first stage, we use data on 9820 firms from twenty manufacturing sectors to simultaneously estimate mark-up and...

This paper tests the pro-competitive effect of trade in the product and labour markets of UK manufacturing sectors between 1988 and 2003 using a two-stage estimation procedure. In the first stage, we use data on 9820 firms from twenty manufacturing sectors to simultaneously estimate mark-up and...

Increased wage inequality between skilled and unskilled workers is a stylized fact, which can be observed in many developed countries. Among the explanations advanced for this phenomenon is the increasing globalization, a skill-biased technical progress, restructuring of the firms, and last but...

The paper’s main objective is to analyze the collective bargaining response in terms of internal flexibility during the Great Recession (GR) in five EU countries (Spain, Germany, France, Italy, United Kingdom), and three economic sectors (industry, commerce and hospitality, and financial...

This study was prepared by Beate Schirwitz while she was working at the Ifo Institute’s Dresden Branch. It was completed in February 2012 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Faculty of Law, Management, and Economics at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in July 2012. It focuses on a...

Using cross-country data from the European Company Survey, we investigate the relationship between workplace employee representation and five behavioral outcomes: strike incidence, the climate of industrial relations, sickness/absenteeism, employee motivation, and staff retention. The evidence...

Using cross-country data, this paper investigates the relationship between workplace representation and strikes. Works councils are associated with reduced strike activity. However, where union members make up a majority of works councillors, such union-dominated councils experience greater...

This paper presents information on wage bargaining institutions, collected using a standardised questionnaire. Our data provide information from 1995 and 2006, for four sectors of activity and the aggregate economy, considering 23 European countries, plus the US and Japan. Main findings include...

In the absence of closed-shops and discriminatory wage policies, union membership can be explained by the existence of social norms. We develop a theoretical frame-work which nests various social custom models. Using micro data for Germany and Great Britain, we find evidence for social custom...