Markus Knell
- 21 April 2010
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 1180Details
- Abstract
- In this paper I study the relation between real wage rigidity (RWR) and nominal price and wage rigidity. I show that in a standard DSGE model RWR is mainly affected by the interaction of the two nominal rigidities and not by other structural parameters. The degree of RWR is, however, considerably influenced by the modelling assumption about the structure of wage contracts (Calvo vs. Taylor) and about other institutional characteristics of wage-setting (clustering of contracts, heterogeneous contract length, indexation). I use survey evidence on price- and wage-setting for 15 European countries to calculate the degrees of RWR implied by the theoretical model. The average levels of RWR are broadly in line with empirical estimates based on macroeconomic data. In order to be able to also match the observed cross-country variation in RWR it is, however, essential to move beyond the country-specific durations of price and wages and to take more institutional details into account.
- JEL Code
- E31 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Price Level, Inflation, Deflation
E32 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Business Fluctuations, Cycles
E24 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy→Employment, Unemployment, Wages, Intergenerational Income Distribution, Aggregate Human Capital
J51 : Labor and Demographic Economics→Labor?Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining→Trade Unions: Objectives, Structure, and Effects - Network
- Wage dynamics network
- 24 April 2009
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 1047Details
- Abstract
- In this paper we present an extension of the Taylor model with staggered wages in which wage-setting is also influenced by reference norms (i.e. by benchmark wages). We show that reference norms can considerably increase the persistence of inflation and the extent of real wage rigidity but that these effects depend on the definition of reference norms (e.g. how backward-looking they are) and on whether the importance of norms differs between sectors. Using data on collectively bargained wages in Austria from 1980 to 2006 we show that wage-setting is strongly influenced by reference norms, that the wages of other sectors seem to matter more than own past wages and that there is a clear indication for the existence of wage leader-ship (i.e. asymmetries in reference norms).
- JEL Code
- E31 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Price Level, Inflation, Deflation
E32 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Business Fluctuations, Cycles
E24 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy→Employment, Unemployment, Wages, Intergenerational Income Distribution, Aggregate Human Capital
J51 : Labor and Demographic Economics→Labor?Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining→Trade Unions: Objectives, Structure, and Effects - Network
- Wage dynamics network