Unions, Employers Associations, and Wage-Setting Institutions in North and Central Europe, 1950-1992

It is commonly argued that wage-setting is everywhere becoming less centralized due to changes in production, occupational structure, and economic integration. In this paper we present new data on the extent to which wage-setting institutions have changed since 1950 in countries in the northern half of continental Western Europe where union coverage is high and wage bargaining has traditionally been centralized at the industry or national level. In particular, we present data on four dimensions often associated with the concept of "corporatism" in industrial relations: the encompassingness of collective bargaining, union concentration, the statutory authority of the peak associations of unions and employers, and the centralization of collective bargaining. The most notable feature of the data we gather is the absence of a general trend toward greater decentralization. At different points in time, decentralization in some fashion occurred in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden, but not in the other five countries we examine. We conclude with some speculations concerning sources of stability and instability in centralized wage-setting institutions.