How do firm-level collective agreements affect firm performance in a multi-level bargaining system? Using detailed Belgian-linked employer-employee panel data, our findings show that firm-level agreements increase both wage costs and labour productivity (with respect to sector-level agreements). Relying on approaches developed by Bartolucci and Hellerstein et al., they also indicate that firm-level agreements exert a stronger impact on wages than on productivity, so that profitability is hampered. However, this rent-sharing effect mostly holds in sectors where firms are more concentrated or less exposed to international competition. Firm agreements are thus mainly found to raise wages beyond labour productivity when the rents to be shared between workers and firms are relatively big. Overall, this suggests that firm-level agreements benefit both employers and employees-through higher productivity and wages-without being very detrimental to firms' performance.

Au-delà des simples études de cas types, nous proposons une analyse “grandeur nature” de la Prime pour l’Emploi à partir du logiciel de microsimulation SYSIFF98. Il s’agit d’abord d’une mise en perspective de la PPE par rapport aux autres mesures suggérées (Allocation Compensatrice de Revenu et ristourne de CSG), à coût budgétaire comparable. L’évaluation des taux marginaux effectifs de prélèvement et des gains financiers à la reprise d’emploi confirment ensuite que la PPE n’atteint que modestement ses objectifs incitatifs. La version 2003 (avec majoration pour les salariés à temps partiel) reste trop modeste pour rendre vraiment intéressante une reprise d’activité à mi-temps. Nous caractérisons finalement les effets individuels de la mesure et les possibles effets de seuil qu’implique le plafond d’éligibilité au niveau du ménage.

The pandemic crisis constitutes an unprecedented challenge for the European Union and for the Euro Area. Indeed, the European institutional architecture can be viewed as being halfway between an association of sovereign states (like the United Nations) and a politically integrated federation (like the United States). In this original construction, competences on several matters (such as economic, political, social and health issues) are shared at the European level, but also at the national and local levels, in more complex ways than in fully integrated federations. To improve the European Union's resilience to violent external shocks, the main objective of this paper is to determine to what extent these competences should be transferred to the federal level. In this respect, we will consider whether a federal leap is necessary in several areas, namely (i) monetary and fiscal policy (rules), (ii) labor markets policy and social models, migratory flows and skill shortages, and cooperation policy and (iii) renewed industrial policy and exchange rates. Despite a highly uncertain context, we outline some perspectives for the future of the European Union.