ABSTRACT
Through much of the postwar period industrial countries have experienced a tendency for wage increases to exceed the room provided by productivity increases. In many countries policymakers have resorted to incomes policies to combat inflation without depressing employment. Some of these policies were successful, others not. The search for the forms of institutional underpinnings which might favor successful incomes policies has identified a number of features, some of which have been bundled together as corporatism. Centralized bargaining, or the coordination of wage claims through a central authority within the union federation, is considered an essential feature of the link between the structure of the labour market and economic performance. A high degree of unionization, weak plant-level worker representation, and a high degree of organization on the employers’ side are further key elements of corporatism. Other socio-economic features which have been suggested as supporting successful incomes policies are the sense of vulnerability to international markets, a strong social democratic tradition, the acceptance of the unions as ‘social partners’, as well as certain characteristics of the legal system (Dore, 1994). A discussion of the issue of private versus public ownership, however, has been lacking in these accounts.
