Implications of wage bargaining systems on regional differentiation in the European Union

Abstract

The theoretical literature has argued that a centralized wage bargaining system may result in low regional wage differentiation and high regional unemployment differentials. The empirical literature has found that centralized wage bargaining leads to lower wage inequality for different skills, industries and population groups, but has not investigated its impact on regional wage differentiation. Empirical evidence in this paper for EU regions suggests that countries with more coordinated wage bargaining systems have lower regional wage differentials, after controlling for regional productivity and unemployment differentials.regional wage differentiation, wage bargaining system, regional unemployment differentials, regional productivity differentials