IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/iza/izawol/journly2015n101.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Perverse effects of two-tier wage bargaining structures

Author

Listed:
  • Tito Boeri

    (L'Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi, Italy, and IZA, Germany)

Abstract

Debate over labor market flexibility focuses mainly on firing costs, while largely ignoring wage determination and the need for collective bargaining reform. Most countries affected by the euro debt crisis have two-tier bargaining structures in which plant-level bargaining supplements national or industrywide (multi-employer) agreements, taking the pay agreement established at the multi-employer level as a floor. Two-tier structures were intended to link pay more closely to productivity and to allow wages to adjust downward during economic downturns, while preventing excessive earning dispersion. However, these structures seem to fail precisely on these grounds.

Suggested Citation

  • Tito Boeri, 2015. "Perverse effects of two-tier wage bargaining structures," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 101-101, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izawol:journl:y:2015:n:101
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://wol.iza.org/articles/perverse-effects-of-two-tier-wage-bargaining-structures-1.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://wol.iza.org/articles/perverse-effects-of-two-tier-wage-bargaining-structures
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:dau:papers:123456789/11158 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Steinar Holden, 1998. "Wage Drift and the Relevance of Centralised Wage Setting," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 100(4), pages 711-731, December.
    3. John Driffill, 2006. "The Centralization of Wage Bargaining Revisited: What Have we Learnt?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(4), pages 731-756, November.
    4. Sanvi Avouyi-Dovi & Denis Fougère & Erwan Gautier, 2013. "Wage Rigidity, Collective Bargaining, and the Minimum Wage: Evidence from French Agreement Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(4), pages 1337-1351, October.
    5. McDonald, Ian M & Solow, Robert M, 1981. "Wage Bargaining and Employment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 896-908, December.
    6. Boeri, Tito & Lucifora, Claudio & Murphy, Kevin J. (ed.), 2013. "Executive Remuneration and Employee Performance-Related Pay: A Transatlantic Perspective," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199669806, Decembrie.
    7. MaCurdy, Thomas E & Pencavel, John H, 1986. "Testing between Competing Models of Wage and Employment Determination in Unionized Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(3), pages 3-39, June.
    8. Holden, Steinar, 1998. " Wage Drift and the Relevance of Centralised Wage Setting," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 100(4), pages 711-731, December.
    9. Brown, James N & Ashenfelter, Orley, 1986. "Testing the Efficiency of Employment Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(3), pages 40-87, June.
    10. Ana Rute Cardoso & Pedro Portugal, 2005. "Contractual Wages and the Wage Cushion under Different Bargaining Settings," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 23(4), pages 875-902, October.
    11. Boeri, Tito & Brugiavini, Agar & Calmfors, Lars (ed.), 2001. "The Role of Unions in the Twenty-first Century: A Report for the Fondazione Rodolfo Debenedetti," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199246588, Decembrie.
    12. Boeri, Tito, 2014. "Two-Tier Bargaining," IZA Discussion Papers 8358, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Claudio Lucifora & Daria Vigani, 2021. "Losing Control? Unions’ Representativeness, Pirate Collective Agreements, and Wages," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(2), pages 188-218, April.
    2. Manudeep Bhuller & Karl Ove Moene & Magne Mogstad & Ola L. Vestad, 2022. "Facts and Fantasies about Wage Setting and Collective Bargaining," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 36(4), pages 29-52, Fall.
    3. Marianna Belloc & Paolo Naticchioni & Claudia Vittori, 2023. "Urban wage premia, cost of living, and collective bargaining," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 23(1), pages 25-50.
    4. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/4dha0uhh68df8q5or96ol4inu is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Dale-Olsen, Harald, 2019. "Creative Destruction, Social Security Uptake and Union Networks," IZA Discussion Papers 12546, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. E. Gautier & D. Fougère & S. Roux, 2016. "The Impact of the National Minimum Wage on Industry-Level Wage Bargaining in France," Working papers 587, Banque de France.
    7. Ronchi, Maddalena & di Mauro, Filippo, 2017. "Wage bargaining regimes and firms' adjustments to the Great Recession," Working Paper Series 2051, European Central Bank.
    8. Dale-Olsen, Harald, 2018. "Wages, Creative Destruction, and Union Networks," IZA Discussion Papers 11894, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Mr. Alvar Kangur, 2018. "Competitiveness and Wage Bargaining Reform in Italy," IMF Working Papers 2018/061, International Monetary Fund.
    10. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/3mjt8d63i195voq228mf1sr91q is not listed on IDEAS
    11. John T. Addison, 2016. "Collective bargaining systems and macroeconomic and microeconomic flexibility: the quest for appropriate institutional forms in advanced economies," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 5(1), pages 1-53, December.
    12. Fougère, Denis & Gautier, Erwan & Roux, Sébastien, 2018. "Wage floor rigidity in industry-level agreements: Evidence from France," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 72-97.
    13. Denis Fougère & Erwan Gautier & Sébastien Roux, 2016. "The Impact of the National Minimum Wage on Industry-Level Wage Bargaining in France," Working Papers hal-03469977, HAL.
    14. Faia, Ester & Pezone, Vincenzo, 2018. "The Cost of Wage Rigidity," CEPR Discussion Papers 13407, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Fougère, Denis & Gautier, Erwan & Roux, Sébastien, 2016. "Understanding Wage Floor Setting in Industry-Level Agreements: Evidence from France," IZA Discussion Papers 10290, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Tito Boeri & Juan F. Jimeno, 2015. "The unbearable divergence of unemployment in europe," Working Papers 1534, Banco de España.
    17. Denis Fougère & Erwan Gautier & Sébastien Roux, 2016. "The Impact of the National Minimum Wage on Industry-Level Wage Bargaining in France," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03469977, HAL.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Boeri, Tito, 2014. "Two-Tier Bargaining," IZA Discussion Papers 8358, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Swati Basu & Saul Estrin & Jan Svejnar, 2005. "Employment Determination in Enterprises under Communism and in Transition: Evidence from Central Europe," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 58(3), pages 353-369, April.
    3. Peter J. Luke & Mark E. Schaffer, 1999. "Wage Determination in Russia: An Econometric Investigation," CERT Discussion Papers 9908, Centre for Economic Reform and Transformation, Heriot Watt University.
    4. repec:eee:labchp:v:2:y:1986:i:c:p:1039-1089 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Maritza López-Novella & Salimata Sissoko, 2009. "Working Paper 12-09 - Salaires et négociation collective en Belgique : une analyse microéconomique en panel," Working Papers 0912, Federal Planning Bureau, Belgium.
    6. Marie-Claire Villeval & Manfred Konigstein, 2005. "The Choice of the Agenda in Labor Negotiations: efficiency and behavioral considerations," Working Papers 0508, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    7. Drydakis Nick, 2011. "Greek unions' preferences: measuring trends in the field. An exploratory note on the period 2008–2009," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 17(4), pages 563-576, November.
    8. Maritza López Novella & Salimata Sissoko, 2013. "Understanding wage determination in a multi-level bargaining system: a panel data analysis," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 44(2), pages 879-897, April.
    9. Michael C. Burda & Bernd Fitzenberger & Alexander Lembcke & Thorsten Vogel, 2008. "Unionization, Stochastic Dominance, and Compression of the Wage Distribution: Evidence from Germany," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2008-041, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    10. Frank Scharr, 2005. "Tarifbindung, Rententeilung und Konzessionsverträge als Einflussgrößen der Lohnhöhe in Unternehmen : eine Untersuchung mit Mikrodaten für thüringische Firmen," ifo Dresden Studien, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 39, July.
    11. Eliasson, Tove & Nordström Skans, Oskar, 2014. "Negotiated wage increases and the labor market outcomes of low-wage workers: evidence from the Swedish public sector," Working Paper Series 2014:10, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    12. Andrea Garnero & François Rycx & Isabelle Terraz, 2020. "Productivity and Wage Effects of Firm‐Level Collective Agreements: Evidence from Belgian Linked Panel Data," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(4), pages 936-972, December.
    13. Swagel, Phillip, 2000. "Union behavior, industry rents, and optimal policies," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 925-947, August.
    14. Luciano Fanti, 2011. "When do firms prefer either monopolistic unions or an efficient bargaining?," Discussion Papers 2011/130, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
    15. Daniel, Christophe & Sofer, Catherine, 1998. "Bargaining, Compensating Wage Differentials, and Dualism of the Labor Market: Theory and Evidence for France," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(3), pages 546-575, July.
    16. repec:pri:indrel:dsp01cc08hf62w is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Nicole Guertzgen, 2009. "Rent‐sharing and Collective Bargaining Coverage: Evidence from Linked Employer–Employee Data," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 111(2), pages 323-349, June.
    18. Nicholas Lawson, 2011. "Is Collective Bargaining Pareto Efficient? A Survey of the Literature," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 32(3), pages 282-304, September.
    19. repec:zbw:bofrdp:1990_024 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Marco Guerrazzi & Pier Giuseppe Giribone, 2021. "Dynamic wage bargaining and labour market fluctuations: the role of productivity shocks," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 1(8), pages 1-20, August.
    21. Steven G Allen & Adriana Cassoni & Gastón J Labadie, 1996. "Wages and Employment After Reunionization in Uruguay," Latin American Journal of Economics-formerly Cuadernos de Economía, Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile., vol. 33(99), pages 277-294.
    22. Thorsten Upmann & Julia Müller, 2014. "The Structure of Firm-Specific Labour Unions," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 170(2), pages 336-364, June.
    23. Minas Vlassis, 2003. "Wage Centralization and the Scope of Firm–Union Bargaining: ‘Efficient Bargains’ or ‘Labour Demand’?," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 71(3), pages 308-329, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    wage drift; favorability principle; productivity-related pay; multi-employer bargaining;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs
    • J5 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining
    • J52 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Dispute Resolution: Strikes, Arbitration, and Mediation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izawol:journl:y:2015:n:101. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.