Warum haben wir rigide Arbeitsmärkte? Rent‐seeking versus Soziale Sicherung

This article argues that unions, job protection, and egalitarian pay structures may have as much to do with social insurance of otherwise uninsurable risks as with rent sharing and vested interests. In support of this more benign complementary hypothesis I discuss a range of historical, theoretical, and empirical evidence. The social insurance perspective changes substantially the assessment of often‐proposed reforms of European labour market institutions. The benefits from eliminating labour market rigidities have to be set against the costs of reduced cover of human capital related risk. I also argue that it is unclear whether the forces of globalisation, and the new economy, will force countries to deregulate their labour markets.