P14

Project Team:
Prof. Dr. Gerd Ronning, Professor at the University of Tübingen and Scientific Director (ret.) at the Institute for Applied Economic Research Tübingen
Prof. Dr. Harald Strotmann, University Pforzheim, Executive Director at the Institute for Applied Economic Research Tübingen
Dipl. oec. Wolf Dieter Heinbach, DHBW

A lack of flexibility in the German system of collective bargaining agreements might play a key role in explaining the high level of the German structural unemployment. However, there exist so far at best few studies analysing whether firms which are already acting under more flexible circumstances do really benefit from this.

Suitable micro-econometric methods shall be used to examine whether more flexible wage adaption and wage differentiation are adequate reactions to the existence of heterogeneous labor markets. The Linked-Employer-Employee-Data from the IAB and a survey on the structure of wages and salaries by the German Federal Statistical Office called Verdienststrukturerhebung will be used as data bases.

In a first step, it will be investigated if firms which do have more flexibility by not applying collective bargaining agreements or due to more flexibility in collective agreements (in particular by savings clauses) both make use and benefit from this flexibility. Therefore, existing collective bargaining agreements in Germany have to be systematised with respect to their �openness� in order to use them for multivariate data analysis. Furthermore, the effects of leaving a collective bargaining agreement on wage flexibility and on a firm�s development will be analysed.

Additionally, case studies in selected branches of the economy will be made to discuss possibilities and risks of more flexibility in collective bargaining with employers, employees and members of the workers council (if existing).