IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/wsidps/191.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Wages, collective bargaining and economic development in Germany: Towards a more expansive and solidaristic development?

Author

Listed:
  • Bispinck, Reinhard
  • Schulten, Thorsten

Abstract

During the last decades, German industrial relations have undergone significant changes leading to a partial erosion and fragmentation of collective bargaining as well - and more fundamentally - to a significant change in power relations and the weakening of trade unions. As a result, wage developments in the 2000s in Germany became rather moderate with a growing differentiation among sectors, a sharply rising incidence of low wages and an overall decline of the wage share. This moderate wage development also influenced Germany's overall economic development model as it significantly dampened private demand and thereby promoted a growing discrepancy between a flourishing export industry and a largely stagnating domestic sector. More recently, there have been some indications that German wage policy might change again in a somewhat more expansive and solidaristic direction.

Suggested Citation

  • Bispinck, Reinhard & Schulten, Thorsten, 2014. "Wages, collective bargaining and economic development in Germany: Towards a more expansive and solidaristic development?," WSI Working Papers 191, The Institute of Economic and Social Research (WSI), Hans Böckler Foundation.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:wsidps:191
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/102693/1/797886435.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Addison & Paulino Teixeira & Katalin Evers & Lutz Bellmann, 2012. "Is the Erosion Thesis Overblown? Evidence from the Orientation of Uncovered Employers," GEMF Working Papers 2012-07, GEMF, Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra.
    2. Amlinger, Marc & Bispinck, Reinhard & Schulten, Thorsten, 2014. "Niedriglohnsektor: Jeder Dritte ohne Mindestlohn? Ausnahmen vom geplanten Mindestlohn und ihre Konsequenzen," WSI Reports 12, The Institute of Economic and Social Research (WSI), Hans Böckler Foundation.
    3. Thorsten Schulten & Reinhard Bispinck, 2013. "Stabileres Tarifvertragssystem durch Stärkung der Allgemeinverbindlicherklärung?," Wirtschaftsdienst, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 93(11), pages 758-764, October.
    4. Robert Kollmann & Marco Ratto & Werner Roeger & Jan in't Veld & Lukas Vogel, 2015. "What drives the German current account? And how does it affect other EU Member States?," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 30(81), pages 47-93.
    5. International Monetary Fund, 2013. "Germany: 2013 Article IV Consultation," IMF Staff Country Reports 2013/255, International Monetary Fund.
    6. Katja Rietzler, 2014. "Anhaltender Verfall der Infrastruktur," IMK Report 94-2014, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    7. Virginia Doellgast & Ian Greer, 2007. "Vertical Disintegration and the Disorganization of German Industrial Relations1," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 45(1), pages 55-76, March.
    8. Marc Lavoie & Stockhammer Engelbert, 2013. "Wage-Led Growth: An Equitable Strategy for Economic Recovery," Post-Print hal-01343664, HAL.
    9. Christian Dustmann & Bernd Fitzenberger & Uta Sch?nberg & Alexandra Spitz-Oener, 2014. "From Sick Man of Europe to Economic Superstar: Germany's Resurgent Economy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(1), pages 167-188, Winter.
    10. Bispinck, Reinhard & Schulten, Thorsten, 2011. "Trade union responses to precarious employment in Germany," WSI Working Papers 178, The Institute of Economic and Social Research (WSI), Hans Böckler Foundation.
    11. Alexander Herzog-Stein & Fabian Lindner & Rudolf Zwiener, 2013. "Is the supply side all that counts?," IMK Report 87e-2013, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    12. Anke Hassel, 2014. "The Paradox of Liberalization — Understanding Dualism and the Recovery of the German Political Economy," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 52(1), pages 57-81, March.
    13. Alexander Herzog-Stein & Heike Joebges & Ulrike Stein & Rudolf Zwiener, 2013. "Labour cost trends and international competitiveness in Europe," IMK Report 88e-2013, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    14. Bispinck, Reinhard, 2012. "Allgemeinverbindlicherklärung von Tarifverträgen – vom Niedergang zur Reform?," WSI-Mitteilungen, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 65(7), pages 496-507.
    15. Schulten, Thorsten & Brandt, Torsten, 2008. "Liberalisierung und Privatisierung öffentlicher Dienstleistungen und die Erosion des Flächentarifvertrags," WSI-Mitteilungen, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 61(10), pages 570-576.
    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. Monika Martišková & Marta Kahancová & Jakub Kostolný, 2021. "Negotiating wage (in)equality: changing union strategies in high-wage and low-wage sectors in Czechia and Slovakia," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 27(1), pages 75-96, February.
    2. Donato Di Carlo, 2020. "Understanding wage restraint in the German public sector: does the pattern bargaining hypothesis really hold water?," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(3), pages 185-208, May.
    3. Di Carlo, Donato, 2018. "Does pattern bargaining explain wage restraint in the German public sector?," MPIfG Discussion Paper 18/3, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    4. Schulten, Thorsten & Schulze-Buschoff, Karin, 2015. "Sector-level strategies against precarious employment in Germany: Evidence from construction, commercial cleaning, hospitals and temporary agency work," WSI Working Papers 197, The Institute of Economic and Social Research (WSI), Hans Böckler Foundation.
    5. Anne Dufresne, 2015. "The trade union response to the European economic governance regime. Transnational mobilization and wage coordination," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 21(2), pages 141-156, May.

    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. Nora Albu & Heike Joebges & Rudolf Zwiener, 2018. "Increasing competitiveness at any price?," IMK Working Paper 192-2018, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    2. Ochsenfeld, Fabian, 2018. "The Relational Nature of Employment Dualization: Evidence from Subcontracting Establishments," SocArXiv ta4r6, Center for Open Science.
    3. John T. Addison & Paulino Teixeira & Katalin Evers & Lutz Bellmann, 2016. "Is the Erosion Thesis Overblown? Alignment from Without in Germany," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(3), pages 415-443, July.
    4. Herrero, Daniel & Rial, Adrián, 2023. "Labor costs, KIBS, and export performance: A comparative analysis of Germany and Mediterranean economies," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 184-198.
    5. Schmieja, Vanessa & Schulze-Buschoff, Karin, 2014. "Arbeitsmarktpolitik in nationalen Kontexten: Beispiele guter Praktiken in Europa," WSI Working Papers 193, The Institute of Economic and Social Research (WSI), Hans Böckler Foundation.
    6. Daniel Detzer & Eckhard Hein, 2014. "Finance-dominated capitalism in Germany – deep recession and quick recovery," Working papers wpaper54, Financialisation, Economy, Society & Sustainable Development (FESSUD) Project.
    7. Gadatsch, Niklas & Stähler, Nikolai & Weigert, Benjamin, 2016. "German labor market and fiscal reforms 1999–2008: Can they be blamed for intra-euro area imbalances?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 307-324.
    8. Cristina Balgar, 2014. "What Lies Ahead of Germany’s Leadership Role in Europe," Global Economic Observer, "Nicolae Titulescu" University of Bucharest, Faculty of Economic Sciences;Institute for World Economy of the Romanian Academy, vol. 2(1), pages 65-75, May.
    9. Klug, Thorsten & Mayer, Eric & Schuler, Tobias, 2022. "The corporate saving glut and the current account in Germany," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    10. Kinderman, Daniel, 2014. "Challenging varieties of capitalism's account of business interests: The new social market initiative and German employers' quest for liberalization, 2000-2014," MPIfG Discussion Paper 14/16, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    11. Robert Kollmann & Marco Ratto & Werner Roeger & Jan in't Veld & Lukas Vogel, 2015. "What drives the German current account? And how does it affect other EU Member States?," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 30(81), pages 47-93.
    12. Alexander Hijzen & Pedro S. Martins & Jante Parlevliet, 2017. "Collective Bargaining Through the Magnifying Glass: A Comparison Between the Netherlands and Portugal," IMF Working Papers 2017/275, International Monetary Fund.
    13. Hoffmann, Mathias & Kliem, Martin & Krause, Michael & Moyen, Stéphane & Šauer, Radek, 2021. "Rebalancing the euro area: Is wage adjustment in Germany the answer?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    14. Giovanni Covi, 2021. "Trade imbalances within the Euro Area: two regions, two demand regimes," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 181-221, February.
    15. David Marsden, 2015. "The future of the German industrial relations model [Die Zukunft des deutschen Modells der Arbeitsbeziehungen]," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 48(2), pages 169-187, August.
    16. Baptiste Françon, 2020. "Salaire minimum en Allemagne et segmentation de l’emploi," Working Papers of BETA 2020-36, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    17. Detzer, Daniel & Hein, Eckhard, 2014. "Financialisation and the financial and economic crises: The case of Germany," IPE Working Papers 44/2014, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Institute for International Political Economy (IPE).
    18. John Addison & Paulino Teixeira & Jens Stephani & Lutz Bellmann, 2015. "Declining Unions and the Coverage Wage Gap: Can German Unions Still Cut It?," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 36(3), pages 301-317, September.
    19. Baptiste Françon, 2021. "Salaire minimum en Allemagne et segmentation de l’emploi," Working Papers halshs-03217241, HAL.
    20. Baccaro, Lucio & Pontusson, Jonas, 2018. "Comparative political economy and varieties of macroeconomics," MPIfG Discussion Paper 18/10, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:zbw:wsidps:191. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wsihbde.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.