Wage Rounds in the Manufacturing Sector

The institutional framework of the wage formation process plays an important role in the adjustment of the economy to supply shocks. One important aspect of these institutional arrangements is the sequence of wage settlements: A concentration of wage bargaining in a short period is more apt to make the public interest visible than when wage negotiations are less centralized. In the fifties and sixties wage awards in the manufacturing sector were distributed unevenly over the whole year. It was not before the seventies that the yearly wage round became the standard in manufacturing.