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Collective Bargaining And Rising Inequalities: Do The OECD And IMF Get It?

Janssen, Ronald, (2016), “Collective Bargaining And Rising Inequalities: Do The OECD And IMF Get It?”, Social Europe, 3 February.

In a paper published in spring 2015, the IMF’s research department made the case for trade unions and collective bargaining as a powerful tool to keep inequalities in check. Whereas previous literature and statistics were already showing the existence of such a link, the IMF paper went even further by pointing out that trade unions and collective bargaining not only tend to reduce inequalities by pushing up wages at the lower end of the pay scale but also limit the income share captured by the top 10% of income earners. Moreover, the IMF research found that high trade union membership also influences the extent to which the tax system and the welfare state redistribute revenues in a more equal way. In two recent working papers, the OECD Economics Department also focusses on the theme of inequalities and this in ways one would not necessarily expect.

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