Institutions of Coordination in Mixed Market Economies: The Gatekeeper Role of the State in Labour Relations

Abstract

According to the Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) approach, the gatekeeper role of the state is a key feature in the Mixed Market Economies (MMEs) coordination channel. Relying upon the ICTWSS dataset, the article investigates how this role was concretely deployed in the labour relations dimension. Special consideration is given to ground how this role took place before the path towards the EMU was set as well as to sketch out the dynamics of change that followed afterwards. A close inspection of the coordination channel allows, indeed, completing the picture about the juxtaposition between Mixed and Coordinated Market Economies that the distributive costs stemming from the Euro-crisis has made extremely salient.