European collective bargaining systems have the reputation of imposing rigidity on the labor market, which leads to high unemployment, in particular when compared to the USA system. Portugal is one of the OECD economies with highest wage °exibility and lowest unemployment rate, despite having typically European labor market institutions |collective bargaining sets wages for unionized as well as...

Models of economic geography predict that transportation costs directly affect demand for goods and the supply of intermediate inputs. One of the reasons that international trade is concentrated in the coastal provinces of China is that they have lower transportation costs in transporting goods to other countries than do provinces in the interior. This paper examines the relationship between th...

____________________________________________________________________ v Introduction _________________________________________________________________ 1 1. The Wage Structure and Technology Use _______________________________________ 1 2. Data Sources ______________________________________________________________ 3 3. Technology Use_____________________________________________________________ 4 ...

The wage policy of a German and a U.S. firm is comparatively analysed with a focus on the relation between wages and hierarchies. While prior studies examine only one particular firm, in this paper two plants of the same owners with similar production processes in different institutional environments are inspected. Convex wage profiles over the hierarchy levels of both plants are found. The U.S...

The paper analyses the links between a binding minimum wage and union bargaining. A dual labour market model is developed where the rst sector outcome is characterised by bargaining between unions and rms, while in the second sector rms have to pay a statutory minimum wage. It is shown that a minimum wage increase has negative employment e ects only if the bargaining outcome is described by the...

The relationship between wage inflation and unemployment has been extensively investigated since the early work of Phillips [Phillips, A.W., 1958. The relation between unemployment and the rate of change of money wage rates in the U.K. 1861–1957. Economica 25, 283–299] and Lipsey [Lipsey, R.G., 1960. The relation between unemployment and the rate of change of money wage rates in the U.K. 1861–1...

We study a model in which management and a union bargain sequentially, first choosing a rule that will later determine the level of employment, and then choosing a wage. The government then chooses an output or an employment subsidy. An exogenous natural turnover rate in the unionized sector creates unemployment whenever the union wage exceeds the competitive wage. Government intervention can i...

For three years after developing countries open their stock markets to inflows of foreign capital, the average annual growth rate of the real wage in the manufacturing sector increases by a factor of seven. No such increase occurs in a control group of developing countries that do not liberalize. The temporary increase in the growth rate of the real wage permanently drives up the level of avera...