Endogenous nominal rigidities and monetary policy

Recent empirical research finds that the degree of nominal rigidities varies over monetary policy regimes. This implies that monetary policy analysis with exogenously given nominal rigidities is subject to the Lucas critique. We allow firms to choose the probability of price adjustment in a Calvo-style sticky price model, and analyze how this probability changes according to an inflation coefficient of the Taylor rule. The model shows that a more aggressive monetary policy response to inflation makes firms less likely to reset prices and gives the resulting New Keynesian Phillips curve a flatter slope and a smaller disturbance, as observed during the Volcker-Greenspan era. Also, such a policy response can stabilize both inflation and the output gap by exploiting the feedback effects of this policy response on firms’ price-setting. These results offer theoretical support for the good policy hypothesis about the Great Moderation.     

Real price and wage rigidities with matching frictions

Frictional unemployment means that workers, for some time, are a firm-specific factor of production. This paper models the resulting interaction of wage bargaining and price setting at the firm level in a New Keynesian model with labor market matching frictions. Real rigidities arise and the labor share ceases to be a good proxy for marginal costs. The model replicates the impulse responses of an SVAR for U.S. data better than alternatives in which the real rigidities arising at the firm level are absent. In addition, it implies reasonably low degrees of nominal rigidity whereas the alternatives do not. The interaction of wage and price setting at the firm level is important for the macroeconomic dynamics.     

Credit conditions and recoveries from financial crises

Recoveries from recessions associated with a financial crisis tend to be sluggish. In this paper, we present evidence that stressed credit conditions are an important factor constraining the pace of recovery. In particular, using industry-level data, we find that industries relying more on external finance grow more slowly than other industries during recoveries from recessions associated with financial crises. Additional tests, based on establishment size, on alternative definitions of financial crises, and on corporate-government interest rate spreads, support the findings. Moreover, for subsets of industries where financial frictions are more severe, we find much stronger differential growth effects.     

Trend inflation, wage and price rigidities, and productivity growth

What are the steady-state implications of inflation in a general-equilibrium model with real per capita output growth and staggered nominal price and wage contracts? Surprisingly, a benchmark calibration implies an optimal inflation rate of -1.9 percent. The analysis also shows that trend inflation has important effects on the economy when combined with nominal contracts and real output growth. Steady-state output and welfare losses are quantitatively important even for low values of trend inflation. Further, nominal wage contracting is found to be quantitatively more important than nominal price contracting in generating the results. This conclusion does not arise from price dispersion per se, but from an effect of nominal output growth on the optimal markup of monopolistically competitive labour suppliers. Finally, accounting for productivity growth is found to be important for calculating the welfare costs of inflation. Indeed, the presence of 2 percent productivity growth increases the welfare costs of inflation in the benchmark specification by a factor of four relative to the no-growth case.     

Income Taxation and Wage Policy: An Application to Minimum Wage

In this paper, we explore how the government can play a role in affecting the compensation policies of private firms in a manner that complements its income tax policies. We illustrate how this role of the government can be served by minimum wage legislation. JEL Code: H2, D6     

Wage rigidity and job creation

Recent research in macroeconomics emphasizes the role of wage rigidity in accounting for the volatility of unemployment fluctuations. We use worker-level data from the CPS to measure the sensitivity of wages of newly hired workers to changes in aggregate labor market conditions. The wage of new hires, unlike the aggregate wage, is volatile and responds almost one-to-one to changes in labor productivity. We conclude that there is little evidence for wage rigidity in the data.     

Globalization and the Gender Wage Gap

There are several theoretical reasons why globalization willhave a narrowing as well as a widening effect on the genderwage gap, but little is known about the actual impact, exceptfor some country studies. This study contributes to the literaturein three respects. First, it is a large cross-country studyof the impact of globalization on the gender wage gap. Second,it employs the rarely used ILO October Inquiry database, whichis the most far-ranging survey of wages around the world. Third,it focuses on the within-occupation gender wage gap, an alternativeto the commonly used raw and residual wage gaps as a measureof the gender wage gap. This study finds that the occupationalgender wage gap tends to decrease with increasing economic development,at least in richer countries, and to decrease with trade andforeign direct investment (FDI) in richer countries, but findslittle evidence that trade and FDI also reduce the occupationalgender wage gap in poorer countries.     

企业薪酬管理与经营风险

企业薪酬管理相关理论有广义分配理论，集体交涉工资理论，分享经济理论，薪酬制度的改革必须体现理财目标，必须与理财环境相适应，必须正确处理改革与规范的关系。     

Real Wage Rigidities and the New Keynesian Model

Most central banks perceive a trade-off between stabilizing inflation and stabilizing the gap between output and desired output. However, the standard new Keynesian framework implies no such trade-off. In that framework, stabilizing inflation is equivalent to stabilizing the welfare-relevant output gap. In this paper, we argue that this property of the new Keynesian framework, which we call the divine coincidence , is due to a special feature of the model: the absence of nontrivial real imperfections. We focus on one such real imperfection, namely, real wage rigidities. When the baseline new Keynesian model is extended to allow for real wage rigidities, the divine coincidence disappears, and central banks indeed face a trade-off between stabilizing inflation and stabilizing the welfare-relevant output gap. We show that not only does the extended model have more realistic normative implications, but it also has appealing positive properties. In particular, it provides a natural interpretation for the dynamic inflation–unemployment relation found in the data.     

Real Wage Rigidities and the Cost of Disinflations

This paper analyzes the cost of disinflations under real wage rigidities in a micro-founded New Keynesian model. The conventional view is that real wage rigidities can be a useful mechanism to generate a slump in output after a credible disinflationary policy because they prevent the immediate adjustment of inflation. This view is flawed, since it depends on analyzing the model in a linearized framework. Once nonlinearities are taken into account, the results change both qualitatively and quantitatively. Disinflations actually lead to a permanently higher level of output, and real wage rigidities increase the output during the adjustment to the new steady state.     

职工薪酬与会计稳健性——基于中国上市公司的经验证据

企业职工对未来可持续的高工资和管理层对未来低劳动力成本的不同期望,可能导致两者对会计稳健性需求的差异。本文以Khan et al.(2009)的C Score为会计稳健性的计量方式,分析了职工薪酬、工资刚性与会计稳健性的关系。结果显示:较高的职工薪酬与较强的会计稳健性相联系;工资的向下刚性特征与较强的会计稳健性相联系;作为工会规模代理变量的职工人数也与会计稳健性显著正相关。此外2008年实行《新劳动合同法》之后,企业的会计稳健性有了显著提高,这也可能侧面体现了职工与会计稳健性的关系。本文的研究意义在于联结了传统的职工薪酬研究和会计稳健性研究,对Watts(2003)提出的与会计稳健性相关的契约集合进行了扩展,显示了职工薪酬契约对会计稳健性的影响。     

Wage indexation: A macroeconomic approach

This essay examines the role of wage indexation in dampening macroeconomic fluctuations in a simple neoclassical model modified to incorporate short-term wage rigidities and uncertainty. The analysis departs from most of the previous literature on indexing in its explicit consideration of real disturbances. It is found that while indexing insulates the real sector from the effects of monetary shocks, it may exacerbate the real effects of real shocks. Thus the analysis suggests an optimal degree of partial indexation that depends on the underlying stochastic structure of the economy. Consequently, optimal indexing will not, in general, insulate the real sector from monetary variability.     

Economic Integration, Factor Mobility, and Wage Convergence

This paper studies the effect of economic integrationof two regions on the mobility of skilled and unskilled workersacross regions and on the resulting location of industrial activity.In particular, we study what happens when wages in both regionsare set by the unions of the West—the region with agreater initial relative stock of human capital. We show thatunder some circumstances, it is the interest of the West's unionsto set up a speed of wage convergence greater than equilibrium,thus generating unemployment in the East. This slows the migrationof human capital toward the East, but quickens the migrationof raw labor toward the West. A greater share of economic activityis eventually located in the Western region. Unions in the Westwill benefit from this provided human capital has low migrationcosts relative to raw labor.     

Administration of recoveries in individual insolvency: case studies of two UK banks

Against a background of greater competition, market saturation and falling margins over the past decade UK banks have sought greater efficiencies in credit and risk assessment procedures, especially with personal lending products. In the same way they have attempted to reduce costs associated with the monitoring and collection of bad debts. Failure to monitor debt recoveries adequately, however, can lead to further pressure on profits. This paper uses a case study approach to outline key strategies adopted by two major banks in respect of formal insolvency, the ‘tip’ of a considerable debt recovery ‘iceberg’. The paper illustrates the reactions and changing administrative practices of banks, as unsecured creditors, and draws on empirical research that has charted the effect of the Insolvency Act 1986 as regards individual debtors. The collection of bad debts presents banks with risks, heightened by adverse selection and moral hazard problems greater than those applicable to credit risk assessment. However, while the ‘downside risk’ equates with the debt write-off plus transaction costs the ‘upside potential’ has elements of both tangible and intangible benefit. The paper goes on to review specific centralization and outsourcing policies against the critical risks in insolvency. It also suggests that the bargaining power of major creditors, including banks, is increased through these activities, to the possible detriment of smaller creditors and of debtors.     

Dynamic Portfolio Choice with Stochastic Wage and Life Insurance

We study optimal insurance, consumption, and portfolio choice in a framework where a family purchases life insurance to protect the loss of the wage earner's human capital. Explicit solutions are obtained by employing constant absolute risk aversion utility functions. We show that the optimal life insurance purchase is not a monotonic function of the correlation between the wage and the financial market. Meanwhile, the life insurance decision is explicitly affected by the family's risk preferences in general. The model also predicts that a family uses life insurance and investment portfolio choice to hedge stochastic wage risk.