When comparing industry-level with firm-level contracts, it is worth emphasising that the latter are concluded by industry-specific unions. ., firm-level contracts in Germany merely involve a different level of bargaining, but do not reflect a fun- damentally different union structure. Thus, with respect to the trade union’s role in removing information asymmetries, there is a-priori no reason to expect any differ- ential effects under firm and industry-level contracts, as the collection of the relevant firm information ought to be equally easy to deal with under either contract type. The distinctive feature that is relevant here apparently relates to the level of wage determination. To the extent that industry-level.
