This paper examines the relationship between labour market concentration and wage inequality using global survey data for the period 2006-2022. The results show that higher labour market concentration is associated with higher wage inequality, especially in the top half of the wage distribution....

Collective bargaining has a marginal and steadily diminishing role in employment regulation in Hungary. Flaws in the legal framework are certainly among the main reasons behind low and decreasing coverage. In the light of ILO standards and comparative national examples, this article analyses the...

Das Jahr 2025 war ein ruhiges Tarifjahr. Insgesamt fanden in lediglich zwölf der inzwischen 22 vom IW-Tarifmonitoring erfassten Branchen Tarifverhandlungen statt. Dabei wurden 15 Tarifverhandlungen geführt oder gestartet, allein neun im ersten Halbjahr. Im zweiten Halbjahr 2025 wurde in der...

We analyze how value added taxes (VATs) affect labor market outcomes (firms' employee costs, wages, hours worked, employment). While VATs are designed to tax consumption, they are levied at the firm level, which creates potential spillovers to labor markets. We hypothesize that VATs affect wages...

We analyze how value added taxes (VATs) affect labor market outcomes (firms' employee costs, wages, hours worked, employment). While VATs are designed to tax consumption, they are levied at the firm level, which creates potential spillovers to labor markets. We hypothesize that VATs affect wages...

Can collective bargaining mitigate monopsony power? This paper addresses this question by examining how the regulation of noncompete agreements for employees by collective agreements affects firm-level markdowns in the French manufacturing sector. Using a staggered difference-in-differences...

This paper examines the evolution of trade union density in Greece between 1970 and 2020. While unionization grew substantially across most Western economies during the postwar reconstruction period, Greek organized labour largely missed this expansion due to the disruptions of the Greek Civil...

Sie finden meist ohne große öffentliche Aufmerksamkeit statt und betreffen nur eine kleine Beschäftigtengruppe: die Tarifverhandlungen für Redakteur:innen an Tageszeitungen. Das heißt aber nicht, dass sie schnell, unkompliziert und konfliktfrei über die Bühne gehen. Im Gegenteil: In den...

Public service reforms often provoke political backlash. Can they also yield political benefits for the politicians who champion them? We study a Wisconsin law that weakened teachers' unions and liberalized pay, prompting mass protests. Exploiting its staggered implementation across school...

We use novel surveys of firms and workers, linked to administrative employer-employee data, to study the prevalence and importance of individual bargaining in wage determination. We show that simple survey questions accurately elicit firms' bargaining strategies. Using the elicited strategies...

Die Wirkungen sozialpartnerschaftlicher Strukturen werden in der Arbeit aus verschiedenen Perspektiven untersucht. Der Ländervergleich zeigt, dass Länder mit koordinierten Lohnverhandlungssystemen ein hohes Beschäftigungsniveau und eine geringere Lohnungleichheit aufweisen. In Bezug auf...

We investigate how firms adjust to demand shocks when wages and employment determination are regulated. Using firm-level data for the Italian metal engineering industry from 2009 to 2021, we estimate the elasticity of the wage bill to changes in firm's real sales. We disentangle the effect on...

This paper evaluates the evolution of the Dutch minimum wage since its introduction in 1969 and discusses this as an intriguing case suggesting that a deeper, economic analysis of firm and employee behaviours is required for minimum-wage analysis in general. The real level of the minimum wage...

This paper takes a historical perspective and assesses the evolution of the institutional features in setting the minimum wage in Greece between 1975 and 2023. It also evaluates developments regarding the minimum wage level, its bite and alignment with productivity. The paper reviews the limited...

We use novel surveys of firms and workers, linked to administrative employer-employee data, to study the prevalence and importance of individual bargaining in wage determination. We show that simple survey questions accurately elicit firms' bargaining strategies. Using the elicited strategies...

This paper proposes novel natural language methods to measure worker rights from collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) for use in empirical economic analysis. Applying unsupervised text-as-data algorithms to a new collection of 30,000 CBAs from Canada in the period 1986-2015, we parse legal...

Im Jahr 2024 fanden insgesamt in 19 der zwanzig vom IW-Tarifmonitoring erfassten Branchen Tarifverhandlungen statt. Insgesamt gab es 32 Tarifauseinandersetzungen, die zum Teil schon 2022 und 2023 begannen. Eine Messung des Konfliktklimas zeigt, dass diese Auseinandersetzungen auch im Jahr 2024...

Trade unions and employers' associations play an important role in Germany not only in wage setting, but also in social policy and labour market regulation. While the majority of companies are organised in employers' associations, less than one fifth of employees are still members of a trade...

The various form of pattern bargaining with manufacturing, as representative of the tradables sector, deciding the norm for wage increases in the Nordic countries are reviewed. This form of bargaining has been consistent with strong international competitiveness and has widespread support among...

This article reviews quantitative research on unions and collective bargaining in Sub-Saharan Africa. It discusses the consequences of unions for wages, inequality, economic performance and employer-employee relations. The article also highlights the role of unions in society, a role that goes...

The effects of trade unions on firm performance are theoretically ambiguous. The sizable empirical literature on their effects is almost exclusively confined to developed countries, particularly those in North America and Europe. We contribute to the literature by estimating union effects on...

Representative establishment data reveal that over 60 percent of German plants covered by collective agreements pay wages above the level stipulated in the agreements, creating a wage cushion between actual and contractual wages. While collective bargaining coverage has fallen over time, the...

Im ersten Halbjahr 2025 fanden in lediglich neun der inzwischen 22 vom IW-Tarifmonitoring erfassten Branchen Tarifverhandlungen statt, wovon die meisten bereits 2024 begannen. Es kam zu vergleichsweise wenigen Auseinandersetzungen, die aber konfliktreich verliefen. Neben immer noch recht hohen...

This study documents the evolution of minimum wages bargained in Italian private sector collective contracts over a forty-year period (1983-2023). Minimum wages have grown in real levels over the last three decades, particularly among high-skilled occupations, but this growth has been partially...

We develop a model where heterogeneous agents choose whether to engage in onthe-job search (OJS) to improve labor income. The model accounts for untargeted microdata patterns: fiscal incentives affect job-to-job mobility and wage growth of stayers - but not leavers - across the income...

This paper investigates whether workers' bargaining power, which extends beyond union membership to collective wage agreements in Germany, affects the level and distribution of wages at the regional level. We conduct fixed-effect regression analysis and a DFL decomposition on SOEP data from 2014...

We develop a model that incorporates task-based production into a matching model with intrafirm wage bargaining. Unlike in existing task-based models, the representative firm derives the optimal task allocation as a function of capital and labor, rather than relative factor prices. Embedding...

This working paper explores the role of collective bargaining in achieving a just transition, drawing on recent literature and a sample of 512 collective agreements. An in-depth study of six country case studies from various regions highlights key themes in just transition clauses, namely...