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...

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...

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...

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 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...

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 the removal of public bank guarantees in Germany as a quasi-natural experiment to estimate the gender bargaining power gap. Using comprehensive wage data from the universe of banking employees, combined with bank-level financial information, we find that women have approximately...

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...

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...

We test whether firms react to changes in the wages and size of their competitors. We use a unique institutional feature of public procurement auctions in Brazil: the moment in which the auction ends is random. For close auctions, winner and runner-up are as good as randomly assigned. We first...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

This study provides the first comprehensive investigation of the relationship between trade union membership and non-performance-oriented bonuses. We expect a positive impact of union membership because members benefit from special entitlements, increased bargaining power and informational...

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...

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...

This article examines the role of local industrial relations, specifically workplace unions and collective bargaining, in improving the working conditions of apparel factories exporting to multinational brands and retailers. Drawing on a unique data set collected in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Haiti,...

The decentralization of wage-setting - from multi-employer bargaining to firm-level agreements - allows firms to adjust their internal wage structure but has uncertain effects on inequality. This article estimates the difference in within-firm wage inequality between centralized and firm-level...

Considering that the transition to a low-carbon economy will not be secured by mutual agreement but requires coordinated industrial organizing, this article builds upon eco-socialist critiques to identify the concrete dimensions of the underlying solidarity between workers and the rest of nature...

Die Gewerkschaften ließen sich zunächst auf die Forderung der Politik ein, Lohnzurückhaltung zu üben. Da die Krise aber schneller als erwartet überwunden werden konnte, stagnierten die Reallöhne, während die Unternehmensgewinne explodierten. Zusätzlich gerieten die Gewerkschaften dadurch...

Collective bargaining is a key element of labour relations, as well as a fundamental part of democracy and an essential piece of the European Social Model. Recently, the important role of social dialogue and collective bargaining has been rediscovered at the EU level. The Directive on Adequate...

Collective bargaining is a key element of labour relations, as well as a fundamental part of democracy and an essential piece of the European Social Model. Recently, the important role of social dialogue and collective bargaining has been rediscovered at the EU level. The Directive on Adequate...

Mobiles Arbeiten, unterstützt durch digitale Technologien, ist spätestens seit der Corona-Pandemie ein wichtiges Thema in Debatten und Praxis der Arbeitswelt. Mobile Arbeit birgt Chancen aus Beschäftigten- und Unternehmenssicht, ebenso wie Herausforderungen und potenzielle Belastungen. Vor...

Recent research documents mounting evidence for sizable and persistent biases in individual labor market expectations. This paper incorporates subjective expectations into a general equilibrium labor market model and analytically studies the implications of biased expectations for wage...

Using linked vacancy-employer-employee data from Austria, we investigate how monopsony power affects firms' posting behavior and wage negotiations. Consistent with theoretical predictions, we find that firms with greater monopsony power post lower wages and offer fewer non-wage amenities,...

In this paper, I explore the relationship between wage bargaining and capital accumulation by developing a differential game in which a monopolistic union sets the wage of its members by taking as given the optimal employment strategy of a representative firm and the way in which capital is...

Using linked vacancy-employer-employee data from Austria, we investigate how monopsony power affects firms' posting behavior and wage negotiations. Consistent with theoretical predictions, we find that firms with greater monopsony power post lower wages and offer fewer non-wage amenities,...