%0 Report
        %A Budde, Julian
%A Dohmen, Thomas
%A Jäger, Simon
%A Trenkle, Simon
        %T Worker Representatives
        %D 2024
        %8 2024 Jul
        %I Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        %C Bonn
        %7 IZA Discussion Paper
        %N 17152
        %U https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp17152
        %X We study the descriptive and substantive representation of workers through worker representatives, focusing on the selection of German works council representatives and their impact on worker outcomes. Becoming a professional representative leads to substantial wage gains for the elected, concentrated among blue-collar workers. Representatives are positively selected in terms of pre-election earnings and person fixed effects. They are more likely to have undergone vocational training, show greater interest in politics, and lean left politically compared to the employees they represent; blue-collar workers are close to proportionally represented among works councilors. Drawing on a retirement-IV strategy and event-study designs around council elections, we find that blue-collar representatives reduce involuntary separations, consistent with blue-collar workers placing stronger emphasis on job security.
        %K representation
%K works-councils
%K unions
%K blue-collar worker