The regional dimension of collective wage bargaining: the case of Belgium

The potential failure of national industry agreements to take into account productivity levels of least productive regions has been considered as one of the causes of regional unemployment in European countries. Two solutions are generally proposed: the first, encouraged by the European commission and the OECD, consists in decentralising wage bargaining to the firm. The second solution, the regionalisation of wage bargaining, is frequently mentioned in Belgium or in Italy where regional unemployment differentials are high. The objective of this paper is to verify if the Belgian wage setting sy... Mehr ...