Wage Setting, Social Pacts and the Euro: A New Role for the State (Amsterdam University Press - Changing Welfare States Series)

Table of Contents......Page 8
Figures and Tables......Page 10
Preface......Page 12
1 The Political Economy of Adjustment in Europe......Page 16
The limits of neo-corporatist analysis......Page 23
The approach of this book......Page 27
Methodological issues......Page 33
Conclusion......Page 36
2 Governments and Wages – A Theoretical Framework......Page 38
Policies on wages......Page 39
Monetary and wage bargaining regimes in the political economy literature......Page 47
Explaining policy choices......Page 58
Conclusion......Page 61
3 Policy Options and Institutions: How Governments Respond......Page 62
Policy options towards the redistributional power of trade unions: market responses and negotiations......Page 63
The operationalization of variables......Page 72
The relationship between institutional and political accommodation......Page 82
Conclusion......Page 88
4 Striving for Conservatism: The Shift in Monetary Regimes......Page 92
Credibility and the inflation bias......Page 93
European monetary integration as a tool for achieving central bank conservatism......Page 96
Central bank independence, monetary policy and government intervention......Page 111
Government intervention to foster monetary conservatism......Page 119
5 The Politics of Government Intervention......Page 122
Institutional constraints on governments......Page 124
The shared roots of consensus democracy and corporatist responses: the political fragmentation of trade unions and the role of union-party relations......Page 133
The role of partisanship......Page 144
Conclusion: Negotiated adjustment and the role of political institutions......Page 150
6 The Responsiveness of Wage Bargaining Institutions......Page 152
Theoretical assumptions about wage flexibility and the role of wage bargaining institutions......Page 154
Priorities of trade unions between employment and real wage protection in wage bargaining - an empirical measure......Page 158
The institutional basis of wage responsiveness......Page 165
Conclusion: Shifting workers’ wage expectations......Page 182
7 The Interaction between Wage Bargaining Institutions and Government Intervention......Page 188
The responsive wage bargaining regimes: Germany and Austria......Page 189
The non-responsive corporatist countries......Page 197
Adjustment of wage expectations in the non-corporatist countries with non-responsive wage bargaining regimes......Page 212
Conclusion: A comparative view on the dynamic between wage bargaining institutions and government intervention......Page 230
8 Negotiated Adjustment – A European Approach......Page 234
Policy options towards trade unions’ redistributional power......Page 236
The interaction of institutions and policies......Page 242
The nature of negotiated adjustment: Reinforcing mechanisms of trade union incorporation......Page 245
The German role model......Page 247
The United Kingdom as the European exception......Page 250
Outlook: Implications for adjustment under EMU......Page 252
Appendix to chapter 3......Page 256
Appendix to chapter 5......Page 258
Appendix to chapter 6......Page 261
Notes......Page 274
Bibliography......Page 290
Index of Names......Page 318
Index of Subjects......Page 324