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This paper studies firm-provided training in a context of potential worker mobility. We argue that such worker mobility may be reduced by employers' associations (EAs) through no-poach agreements. First, we sketch a simple model to illustrate the impact of employer coordination on training. We then present supporting evidence from rich matched panel data, including firms' EA affiliation and workers' individual training levels. We find that workers' mobility between firms in the same EA is considerably lower than mobility between equivalent firms not in the same EA. We also find that training provision by EA firms is considerably higher, even when drawing on within-employee variation and considering multiple dimensions of training. We argue that these results are consistent with a role played by EAs in reducing worker mobility.

Does employers' association (EA) membership affect the wages paid by firms? Such effects could follow from several channels, including increased productivity, different management practices, or employer collusion promoted by EA affiliation. We test these hypotheses drawing on detailed matched employer-employee panel data, including timevarying EA affiliation and worker mobility across firms. We consider the case of private schools in Portugal, 2010-2020, and its EA, and develop a methodology to delimit the sector's scope. We find that, even when controlling extensively for worker characteristics, including worker fixed effects, EA firms pay significantly higher wages. However, when controlling for firm fixed effects, these wage differences are significantly reduced or disappear. Our evidence indicates that the EA wage premium can be largely explained by the selection of high-wage firms (but not high-wage workers) into EA membership.

This paper examines a labor law reform implemented in Portugal in 2009 which restricted the use of fixed-term contracts to reduce labor market segmentation. The reform targeted establishments created by large firms above a specific size threshold, covering about 15% of total employment. Drawing on linked employer-employee longitudinal data and regression discontinuity methods, we find that, while the reform was successful in reducing the number of fixed-term jobs, it did not increase the number of permanent contracts and decreased employment in large firms. However, we find evidence of positive spillovers to small firms that may bias reduced form estimates. To evaluate general equilibrium effects, we build and estimate a directed search and matching model with endogenous number of establishments and jobs. We find spillover effects that induce small biases on reduced form estimates but that significantly change the evaluation of the overall impact of the reform because they diffuse to the whole economy. We estimate that the reform slightly reduced aggregate employment and had negative effects on the welfare of employees and unemployed workers.

Social partners (trade unions and employers' associations) and their representativeness can shape labour institutions and economic and social outcomes in many countries. In this paper, we argue that, when examining social partners' representativeness, it is important to consider both affiliation rates and dissimilarity measures. The latter concerns the extent to which affiliated and non-affiliated firms or workers are distributed similarly across relevant dimensions, including firm size. In our analysis of the European Company Survey, we find that affiliation density and dissimilarity measures correlate positively across countries, particularly in the case of employers' associations in which we focus. This result also holds across employers' associations when we use more detailed, firm population data for Portugal. We conclude that higher affiliation densities do not necessarily correspond to more representative social partners as they can involve greater dissimilarity between affiliated and non-affiliated firms.

This paper presents a new model of firms' decisions on training in a context of potential worker mobility. Such worker mobility can be influenced by employers coordination, namely through the operation of no-poach agreements and employers' associations (EAs). We then present supporting evidence from rich matched panel data, including firms' EA affiliation and workers' training levels. We find that workers' mobility between firms in the same EA is considerably lower than mobility between equivalent firms not in the same EA. We also find that training provision by EA firms is considerably higher.

We investigate the impact of labour market concentration on two dimensions of job quality, namely wages and job security. We leverage rich administrative linked employer-employee data from Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain in the 2010s to provide the first comparable cross-country evidence in the literature. Controlling for productivity and local product market concentration, we show that the elasticities of wages with respect to labour market concentration are strikingly similar across countries: increasing labour market concentration by 10% reduces wages by 0.19% in Germany, 0.22% in France, 0.25% in Portugal and 0.29% in Denmark. Regarding job security, we find that an increase in labour market concentration by 10% reduces the probability of being hired on a permanent contract by 0.46% in France, 0.51% in Germany and 2.34% in Portugal. While not affecting this probability in Italy and Spain, labour market concentration significantly reduces the probability of being converted to a permanent contract once hired on a temporary one. Our results suggest that considering only the effect of labour market concentration on wages underestimates its overall impact on job quality and hence the resulting welfare loss for workers.