Documents Kohn, Karsten 7 results

"Collective bargaining in Germany takes place at either industry or firm level, and bargaining coverage is much higher than union density. The share of a firm's employees covered can vary between 0% and 100%, suggesting that researchers should distinguish union density, coverage at the firm level, and coverage at the individual level. Using linked employer-employee data, the authors estimate OLS and quantile regressions of wages on these dimensions of union influence. They find that a higher share of employees in a firm covered by industrywide or firm-specific contracts is associated with higher wages but find no clear-cut effect on wage dispersion. Yet, holding coverage at the firm level constant, individual coverage is associated with lower wages and less wage dispersion. Higher union density reinforces the effects of coverage. But for employees in firms without coverage, density's effect is negative and thus compresses the wage distribution in firms without coverage."

"Unionization in Germany has declined considerably during the last two decades. We estimate the impact of socioeconomic and workplace-related variables on union membership by means of Chamberlain-Mundlak correlated random effects probit models, using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel. Drawing on the estimates, we project net union densities (NUD) and analyze the differences between East and West Germany, as well as the corresponding changes in NUD over time. Nonlinear Blinder-Oaxaca-type decompositions show that changes in the composition of the work force have only played a minor role for the deunionization trends in West and East Germany. In West-East comparison, differences in the characteristics of the work force reflect a lower quality of membership matches in East Germany right after German unification."

"Collective bargaining in Germany takes place either at the industry level or at the firm level; collective bargaining coverage is much higher than union density; and not all employees in a covered firm are necessarily covered. This institutional setup suggests to explicitly distinguish union power as measured by net union density (NUD) in a labor market segment, coverage at the firm level, and coverage at the individual level. Using linked employer-employee data and applying quantile regressions, this is the first empirical paper which simultaneously analyzes these three dimensions of union influence on the structure of wages. Ceteris paribus, a higher share of employees in a firm covered by industry-wide or firm-level contracts is associated with higher wages. Yet, individual bargaining coverage in a covered firm shows a negative impact both on the wage level and on wage dispersion. A higher union density reinforces the effects of coverage, but the effect of union density is negative at all points in the wage distribution for uncovered employees. In line with an insurance motive, higher union density compresses the wage structure and, at the same time, it is associated with a uniform leftward movement of the distribution for uncovered employees."

"Using linked employer-employee data from the German Structure of Earnings Survey 2001, this paper provides a comprehensive picture of the wage structure in three wage-setting regimes prevalent in the German system of industrial relations. We analyze wage distributions for various labor market subgroups by means of kernel density estimation, variance decompositions, and individual and firm-level wage regressions. Unions' impact through collective and firm-level bargaining mainly works towards a higher wage level and reduced overall and residual wage dispersion. Yet observed effects are considerably heterogeneous across different labor market groups. There is no clear evidence for wage floors formed by collectively bargained low wage brackets which would operate as minimum wages for different groups of workers."

"Union density in Germany has declined remarkably during the last two decades. We estimate socio-economic and workplace-related determinants of union membership in East and West Germany using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel by means of Chamberlain-Mundlack correlated random effects probit models. Drawing on the estimates, we project net union densities (NUD) and analyze the differences between East and West Germany as well as the corresponding changes in NUD over time. Blinder-Oaxaca decompositions show that changes in the composition of the work force have only played a minor role for the deunionization trends in East and West Germany. In East-West comparison, differences in the characteristics of the work force reflect a lower quality of membership matches in East Germany right after German unification."