This book examines theories of firm-level human capital investment with respect to topics in labor demand, macroeconomics (especially connected to unemployment), and firm-union bargaining. It covers a wide range of related policy issues, including the worksharing versus layoff debate, wage-tenure profiles, taxation and the choice between pure wages and profit sharing compensation, and the role of specific investment in the Japanese firm versus the traditional (United States) neoclassical firm.

This volume is based on papers delivered at the second CESifo-Delphi Conferences (Munich, November 2003, and Delphi, June 2004), which are jointly organized by CESifo and the Department of International and European Economic Studies of the Athens University of Economics and Business. The CESifo-Delphi Conferences are organized every two years and involve a two-stage process. Following an initial call for abstracts, a number of authors were selected and invited to present their papers at a workshop meeting in Munich. After further refereeing, some of the authors were invited to present (possibly revised) versions of their papers at the final conference meeting in Delphi. "Contributions to Economic Analysis" was established in 1952. The series purpose is to stimulate the international exchange of scientific information. The series includes books from all areas of macroeconomics and microeconomics.

This book examines human capital investment, employment and bargaining at the level of the firm. It attempts a summary of results that incorporate both human capital investment and employment decisions within firm union bargaining models, emphasising investment in teams, or groups, of workers. The authors also examine human capital in relation to labour demand as well as the delineation between neoclassical and coalitional firms. Further they investigate connections between, on the one hand, turnover costs and firm-specific human capital and, on the other, unemployment. Labour market policy topics recur throughout the book and include the choice between pure wage and profit sharing remuneration systems, the issue of whether training should be subsidized by governments, and work-sharing versus layoff decisions. This book is aimed mainly at the academic economics profession, but is easily accessible to final-year undergraduate and postgraduate students.