Collective bargaining, income distribution, and employment

The article offers suggestions on how brazil's collective bargaining regulations could be reformulated to arrive at more efficient collective contracts and to induce gains in labor productivity while simultaneously moving towards an improved income distribution pattern. The underlying premise is that any system for regulating economic activities consists of a set of rules that use punishment and incentives to induce economic agents to adopt certain behaviors. Since agent behavior governs market behavior to at least some extent, market performance will depend on the structure of existing regulations. Consequently any evaluation of the adequacy of a given regulatory system depends upon the definition of the system's objectives.