LABOR IN THE BOARDROOM

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Jager, Simon; Schoefer, Benjamin; Heining, Joerg
• 署名单位: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); National Bureau of Economic Research; University of California System; University of California Berkeley
• 刊物名称: QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-5533
• DOI: 10.1093/qje/qjaa038
• 发表日期: 2021
• 页码: 669-725
• 关键词: works councils; LEVEL CODETERMINATION; unions; MARKET; firm; INVESTMENT; wages; employers; impacts; Germany

摘要

We estimate the wage effects of shared governance, or codetermination, in the form of a mandate of one-third of corporate board seats going to worker representatives. We study a reform in Germany that abruptly abolished this mandate for stock corporations incorporated after August 1994, while it locked the mandate for the slightly older cohorts. Our research design compares firm cohorts incorporated before the reform and after; in a robustness check we draw on the analogous difference in unaffected firm types (LLCs). We find no effects of board-level codetermination on wages and the wage structure, even in firms with particularly flexible wages. The degree of rent sharing and the labor share are also unaffected. We reject that disinvestment could have offset wage effects through the canonical hold-up channel, as shared governance, if anything, increases capital formation.