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This article uses a case study of vocational training in Norway to explore the conditions under which employers will cooperate to increase the skill level of their workforce. It generates two sets of insights into the political economy of training in coordinated market economies. First, by demonstrating that cooperation among employers was a recent achievement that required the creation of specific, targeted mechanisms, it suggests that a cooperative outcome is difficult to attain, even amid the generally hospitable institutional environment characteristic of these economies. Second, it demonstrates that the employer collective action problem with respect to the initial training of apprentices differs from that posed by the additional raining of experienced workers. This means that even within a single economy, there are several varieties of training politics, each characterized by different patterns of cooperation and conflict; this further complicates the task of creating a coordinated training regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the role of employers in the rise and persistence of centralized wage setting in Norway. Reasons behind the persistence of centralized wage setting in the country; Significance of centralized bargaining between industry-level unions and employer associations in wage setting; Analysis of the development of centralized collective bargaining institutions; Importance of centralized wage bargaining to employers; Strategy used by employers in wage setting.

Analyzes the collective action among Norway's employers, specifying the collective action problems that they face in the labor market and identifying the mechanisms that are employed to produce cooperation. Two categories of Norwegian employers; Problem of employer collective action; Problem of association membership.