Efficienza e efficacia della contrattazione integrativa aziendale. Una rassegna della letteratura empirica italiana

Extant empirical studies on the efficiency and effectiveness of supplementary firm-level bargaining with respect to firm performance and innovation essentially focus on estimating five functions: the probability of adopting or having in place supplementary bargaining and the impact of such agreements on respectively firm performance, employment, wages, and innovation. The review undertaken shows that the results of the various estimates are affected by a series of distortions, at times cumulative, due to either i) the absence of endogeneity controls for some variables, ii) the use of unrepresentative samples, iii) omitted variables, iv) the lack of adequate temporal lags between contracts and outcomes, and finally, v) focusing exclusively (with some exceptions) on the premia aspects (so-called performance-related-pay) thereby unduly reducing the entire contents of one or more supplementary bargaining agreements into a dichotomous variable, ignoring the variety, the different numerosity and the intensity of matters covered. All this contributes to producing limited, vague, and unreliable knowledge of the role of supplementary firm-level bargaining on the dynamics of firm development and the economic system in general, leaving policymakers – who amongst other things dedicate considerable public resources to disseminating decentralized bargaining – without appropriate indications on the causal links between contracts and outcomes.