Brownbag Seminars: The Effect of Unions on Workers and Firms: Evidence from Germany

Abstract: Trade unions in Germany are a dominant labor market institution that is declining. Over the last decades, the coverage of wages at the sectoral level as well as union wage premia decreased markedly. I investigate the role of union coverage on wages and employment of workers, and on firm outcomes such as productivity, size and survival. A large new dataset is used to estimate event studies that exploit variations in the timing of sectoral and regional union wage contracts. I further examine the role of deunionization events at the sectoral level on worker and firm outcomes.