Strike activity and centralisation in wage setting

Abstract

"The moderating effects of centralisation in wage bargaining on strike activity are considered as a stylised fact by many economists. ... Though the theoretical literature on bargaining is concerned mainly with centralisation (measured as the dominant level of bargaining), empirical considerations and studies suggest that the degree of coordination (more importantly) between and within the bargaining parties matters as well. ... We explain strike volume (lost working days per 1000 workers and year due to strike actions) by indicators for coordination or the level of centralisation of bargaining and several control variables. Our choice of coordination and centralisation indicators is OECD04. ...Though the coefficients for the centralisation and coordination indicators are estimated rather imprecisely and disclaimers regarding the validity and reliability of the used institutional indicators are in order, our investigation shows that high levels of coordination had significant moderating effects on strike activity in the considered period. However, the impact of coordination on strike activity shows a clear decreasing trend, i. e. the less coordinated countries have caught up in the three decades. For the continuous macro variables which acted mainly as controls in our study we find only small impacts on strike volume, suggesting that the institutional frame (including traditions) plays a paramount role for the explanation of differences in both the cross-section and time dimension." (Text excerpt, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Ludsteck, J. & Jacobebbinghaus, P. (2010): Strike activity and centralisation in wage setting. In: G. Schweiger & B. Brandl (Hrsg.) (2010): Der Kampf um Arbeit : Dimensionen und Perspektiven, p. 201-219. DOI:10.1007/978-3-531-92505-9_7