Manual and codebook of the WageIndicator Collective Agreements Database

In a globalised world comparative and up-to-date data on wages and wage setting institutions is needed to understand the global economy in relation to national labour markets and industrial relations systems. Collective bargaining is considered an important instrument in wage-setting processes. However, this assumption is not underpinned with rich empirical data, because very little is known about what exactly is agreed in these collective bargaining agreements. Social partners or governmental institutions in some countries maintain databases with collective agreement texts, but few of them code the text according to a predefined set of characteristics. One reason may be that such databases require prolonged efforts to collect, read and code collective agreements. Even if databases are maintained on a country basis, across countries these agreements will be coded differently and on different levels of detail; thus, cross-country comparisons are not possible. This lack of data is an obstacle to the exploration of the range of issues negotiated in collective agreements, as well as their impact on individual labour market outcomes. It challenges the need for a global collective agreement database. The Collective Agreements Database of WageIndicator primarily aims to enrich the content of the WageIndicator websites, but it also provides a unique opportunity to closely examine the variation in agreements within and across countries. This manual and codebook introduces the COBRA system. It then shows the content of the webpages related to the Database, and details how the Collective Agreements are coded. The Appendix includes the full codebook of the database.