An article by Paul Marginson and Jon Erik Dølvik addresses developments in collective wage bargaining arrangements in northern Europe in the light of two major political-economic challenges: EU eastern enlargement and the financial and economic crisis which broke in 2008. They draw on findings from five countries and four sectors.

The analysis undermines the proposition that developments exhibit a common liberalising trajectory, amongst other by finding no uniform trend in national and sectoral policy responses, nor in wage inequality outcomes.