Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/56785 
Year of Publication: 
2010
Series/Report no.: 
IAW Diskussionspapiere No. 67
Publisher: 
Institut für Angewandte Wirtschaftsforschung (IAW), Tübingen
Abstract: 
Collective bargaining agreements have been said to decrease deployment since the work of Calmfors and Driffill (1988). We investigate empirically whether opening clauses, flexible elements that have been introduced to reduce the decline in coverage, can indeed minimise this effect and increase job growth in covered firms. Using representative data on German establishments, the IAB Establishment Panel, in combination with data on opening clauses from the IAW, and performing propensity score matching to control for selectivity bias, we find that the existence of opening clauses has significantly negative effects on job destruction rates and that it increases job growth by approximately 0.73% per year. However, it does not seem the case that firms with explicit knowledge of opening clauses anticipate their increased flexibility, since they do not have higher job creation rates. As regards the actual application of opening clauses, our results do not show additional effects.
Subjects: 
Collective bargaining
opening clauses
job flows
propensity score matching
JEL: 
J51
J63
C21
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.