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The Course of Research into the Economic Consequences of German Works Councils
Author(s) -
Addison John T.,
Schnabel Claus,
Wagner Joachim
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
british journal of industrial relations
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.665
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1467-8543
pISSN - 0007-1080
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8543.2004.00314.x
Subject(s) - german , research council , course (navigation) , focus (optics) , political science , economics , public administration , sociology , history , engineering , archaeology , linguistics , philosophy , physics , optics , government (linguistics) , aerospace engineering
In her recent survey, Carola Frege concludes that economic analysis of the works council has reached a ‘dead end’. The present paper offers a very different assessment. The evolving economic literature is shown to follow three distinct phases, the last of which contains some of the most positive evaluations to date of works council impact on establishment performance. Although these estimates are exaggerated, and the effects of works councils are likely to be small on average, the new literature redirects our research focus towards factors producing swings around this average, including differences in works council types and their workplace environments.