The 28th Colloquium on Personnel Economics (COPE) took place March 18–20, 2026, at the Erasmus School of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam. During the meeting, about 60 papers were presented and discussed intensively and there were two keynotes by Christina Gathmann (LISER) and Alan Benson (University of Minnesota). Laszlo Goerke (IAAEU) presented joint work with Sven Hartmann and Yue Huang on Works councils and income perceptions. The authors are very grateful for the many constructive comments provided by participants of the COPE meeting.