For mainstream economics, rigidities in the labour market are the primary determinants of high and persistent long-term unemployment rates, leading to the need to reform labour market institutions and make them more flexible. Flexible labour markets would not only help to smooth normal business...

Recently, a number of proposals have claimed a decentralization of the collective bargaining structure in Spain. These proposals start from the premise that the current procedures for collective bargaining are inefficient, given the predominance of intermediate-level collective bargaining,...