Wages and the Bargaining Regime in a Corporatist Setting: The Netherlands

In a corporatist country like the Netherlands, wages should not be distinguished by union membership status, but by bargaining regime. Acknowledging only the firms’ bargaining regime, we find small differences between four regimes and certainly no distinction between ‘covered’ and ‘uncovered’ firms. Distinguishing – within covered firms – between workers covered and uncovered by collective bargaining, including a model with partially unobserved sector selection, we find somewhat larger bargaining regime effects, and sometimes substantial coverage effects. Estimation of the latter, is seriously troubled by unobserved heterogeneity, however.