“…115 A phenomenon called "Eurosclerosis" was observed earlier by Herbert Giersch (Giersch, 1985), who argued that European countries became too rigid to cope with severe shocks, especially owing to wage rigidity. More recently, Anderton and Bonthuis (2015), Anderton et al (2016), and Marotzke et al (2016) linked wage rigidities to labour market institutions, finding that, especially in downturns, these wage rigidities are associated with high union density, centralised collective bargaining and strict EPL. However, see also OECD (2017a), which argues that centralised collective bargaining was associated with higher firm-level employment growth in the wake of the Great Recession.…”