Institutional features of wage bargaining in 23 European countries, the US and Japan

Daphne Momferatou (), Melanie Ward-Warmedinger, Erwan Gautier and Philip Du Caju

No 974, Working Paper Series from European Central Bank

Abstract: 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 a high degree of regulation in wage setting in most countries. Although union membership is low in many countries, union coverage is high and almost all countries also have some form of national minimum wage. Most countries negotiate wages on several levels, the sectoral level still being the most dominant, with an increasingly important role for bargaining at the firm level. The average length of collective bargaining agreements is found to lie between one and three years. Most agreements are strongly driven by developments in prices and eleven countries have some form of indexation mechanism which affects wages. Cluster analysis identifies three country groupings of wage-setting institutions. JEL Classification: J31, J38, J51, J58

Keywords: cluster analysis; indexation; institutions; trade union membership; wage bargaining (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-12
Note: 471525
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (193)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.ecb.europa.eu//pub/pdf/scpwps/ecbwp974.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Institutional Features of Wage Bargaining in 23 European Countries, the US and Japan (2009)
Working Paper: Institutional features of wage bargaining in 23 European countries, the US and Japan (2008)
Working Paper: Institutional Features of Wage Bargaining in 23 European Countries, the US and Japan (2008)
Working Paper: Institutional features of wage bargaining in 23 European countries, the US and Japan (2008)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:2008974

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Paper Series from European Central Bank 60640 Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Official Publications ().