Wage payment systems surveys : Consolidated report.

PREFACE This volume is part of an inquiry on the Spread and Characteristics of Wage Payment Systems in the Member States of the Community carried out in the framework of the Foundation's programme of work for 1979 as decided by the Administrative Board of the Foundation. [...] On these grounds it was decided that the aims of the Foundation in carrying out the national surveys be as follows : (i) to give an over-all picture of the existing wage payment systems in the nine countries, especially the incentive schemes; (ii) to describe the developments during the last two decades and to indicate new trends; (iii) to assess the impact of the various incentive payment schemes [...] The European Foundation wishes to emphasise that the analyses and opinions contained in the studies carried out by the national institutes and reflected in the synthesis report are the sole responsibility of the authors concerned. [...] Whereas the description could be more or less exhaustive in the case of a very small country, a representative sample of the various wage payment systems should have been chosen in respect of the large countries, since it was more important to describe the diversity of the wage payment systems than to explore all the branches of the economy. [...] Apart from its descriptive character, two features emerge from this study: a) firstly, the intellectual honesty shown by the authors in explicitly recognising the many limitations and imperfections in the approach adopted; b) secondly, the admirable exactness and the objectivity of some of the opinions stated in the report as regards, inter alia, the causes of the main changes that have come about