Robustness and real consequences of nominal wage rigidity

Nominal wage rigidity has been shown to exist in periods of high inflation, while reduction in nominal pay has been hypothesized to occur in times of low inflation. Nominal wage rigidity would therefore become irrelevant because there is little need to cut nominal pay under high inflation, while the necessary cuts would occur under low inflation. We test this hypothesis by examining Swiss data in the 1990s, where wage inflation was low. Nominal wage rigidity proves robust in a low inflation environment, constituting a considerable obstacle to real wage adjustments. Real wages would indeed respond to unemployment without downward nominal rigidity. Moreover, wage sweep-ups caused by nominal rigidity correlate strongly to unemployment, suggesting downward nominal wage rigidity fuels unemployment.     

Resuscitating the wage channel in models with unemployment fluctuations

Higher wages all else equal translate into higher inflation. More rigid wages imply a weaker response of inflation to shocks. This view of the wage channel is deeply entrenched in central banks’ views and models of their economies. In this paper, we present a model with equilibrium unemployment which has three distinctive properties. First, using a search and matching model with right-to-manage wage bargaining a proper wage channel obtains. Second, accounting for fixed costs associated with maintaining an existing job greatly magnifies profit fluctuations for any given degree of wage fluctuations, which allows the model to reproduce the fluctuations of unemployment over the business cycle. And third, the model implies a reasonable elasticity of steady state unemployment with respect to changes in benefits. The calibration of the model implies low profits, but does not require a small gap between the value of working and the value of unemployment for the worker.     

The (ir)relevance of real wage rigidity in the New Keynesian model with search frictions

We develop a New Keynesian model with search and matching frictions in the labor market. We show that the model generates counterfactual labor market dynamics. In particular, it fails to generate the negative correlation between vacancies and unemployment in the data, i.e., the Beveridge curve. Introducing real wage rigidity leads to a negative correlation, and increases the magnitude of labor market flows to more realistic values. However, inflation dynamics are only weakly affected by real wage rigidity. The reason is that labor market frictions give rise to long-run employment relationships. The measure of real marginal costs that is relevant for inflation in the Phillips curve contains a present value component that varies independently of the real wage.     

Labor market dynamics under long-term wage contracting

Recent research seeking to explain the strong cyclicality of US unemployment emphasizes the role of wage rigidity. This paper proposes a micro-founded model of wage rigidity—an equilibrium business cycle model of job search, where risk neutral firms post optimal long-term contracts to attract risk averse workers. Equilibrium contracts feature wage smoothing, limited by the inability of parties to commit to contracts. The model is consistent with aggregate wage data if neither worker nor firm can commit, producing too rigid wages otherwise. Wage rigidity does not lead to a substantial increase in the cyclical volatility of unemployment.     

Skills, search and the persistence of high unemployment

The persistence of high-unemployment rates in Europe has fueled theories advocating the existence of multiple natural rates of unemployment. Labor-market institutions and increasing returns to scale have been singled out as the main causes of multiplicity and, therefore, of high-unemployment traps. The contribution of this paper is both to expand the set of mechanisms leading to multiple natural rates of unemployment and to establish a minimum set of assumptions under which such multiplicity may arise. To this aim, a search-matching model is presented where households allocate time to market and non-market activities, and invest both in physical and human capital. It is shown that under the standard assumption of concavity in production and matching such a model yields multiple long-run equilibria with different rates of unemployment. This result does not rely on labor-market institutions or increasing returns to scale. Multiplicity in our model arises from differences in the intensity of use of human capital across time-consuming activities.     

On the short-run effects of labor market reforms

While several countries have recognized the need of introducing flexibility to their labor markets, there are different ways of doing so. Using a small open economy with tenure-dependent separation taxes, this paper compares introducing a full reform with two partial alternatives: (1) the introduction of temporary contracts, and (2) the elimination of separation costs from all new hires while freezing them on the workers that were hired prior to the reform. The first alternative can achieve a first-best long run outcome but leads to a sharp initial recession. The second alternative generates a similar long run outcome but avoids the recessionary adjustment.     

In search of the natural rate of unemployment

The natural rate of unemployment can be measured as the time-varying steady state of a structural vector autoregression. For post-War US data, the natural rate implied by this approach is more volatile than most previous estimates, with its movements accounting for the bulk of the variation in the unemployment rate, as well as substantial portions of the variation in aggregate output and inflation. These movements, in turn, can be related to variables associated with labor-market search theory, including unemployment benefits, labor productivity, real wages, and sectoral shifts in the labor market. There is also a strong negative relationship between inflation and the corresponding measure of cyclical unemployment, supporting the existence of a short-run Phillips curve.     

Wage aspirations and unemployment persistence

We use panel data to examine the empirical determinants of the reservation wage- in particular the influence of previous wages- and consider what this implies for the evolution of the natural rate of unemployment. We find that previous wages have a significant but relatively small effect on reservation wages (an elasticity between 0.15 and 0.47). We also find considerable differences across genders with previous wages being more important for men and market wages being more important for women. Overall our results suggest that the reservation wage will adjust quite quickly to shocks.     

Why did the average duration of unemployment become so much longer?

There has been a substantial increase in the average duration of unemployment relative to the unemployment rate in the U.S. over the last 30 years. We evaluate the performance of a standard job-search model in explaining this phenomenon. In particular, we examine whether the increase in within-group wage inequality and the decline in the incidence of unemployment can account for the increase in unemployment duration. The results indicate that these two changes can explain a significant part of the increase over the last 30 years, although the model fails to match the behavior of unemployment duration during 1980s.     

Equilibrium Unemployment, Job Flows, and Inflation Dynamics

In order to explain the joint fluctuations of output, inflation and the labor market, this paper develops and estimates a general equilibrium model that integrates a theory of equilibrium unemployment into a monetary model with nominal price rigidities. The estimated model accounts for the responses of employment, hours per worker, job creation, and job destruction to a monetary policy shock. Moreover, search frictions in the labor market generate a lower elasticity of marginal costs with respect to output. This helps to explain the sluggishness of inflation and the persistence of output that are observed in the data.     

Ambiguity aversion and the absence of wage indexation

This paper analyzes optimal wage contracting assuming agents are not subjective expected utility maximizers but are, instead, ambiguity (or uncertainty) averse decision makers who maximize Choquet expected utility. We show that such agents will choose not to include any indexation coverage in their wage contracts even when inflation is uncertain, unless the perceived inflation uncertainty is high enough. Significantly, the exercise does not presume any exogenous costs (e.g., transactions costs) of including indexation links.     

Financial constraints and entrepreneurial investment

There is a well documented interdependence between the investment and saving decisions of entrepreneurial households. I study this interdependence in a dynamic, general equilibrium model with heterogeneous agents and occupational choice. The simulated economy replicates U.S. data on the distribution of wealth and income, and the shares of wealth and income for each occupation. The dominant incentive behind the high level of savings of business households is the desire to relax a wealth constraint in financing entrepreneurial projects in order to operate their firms at an optimal size. Because successful firms grow over time, entrepreneurs enter business despite lower initial earnings than they would receive in paid employment.     

Identifying the influences of nominal and real rigidities in aggregate price-setting behavior

We formulate a generalized price-setting framework that incorporates staggered contracts of multiple durations and that enables us to directly identify the influences of nominal vs. real rigidities. We estimate this framework using macroeconomic data for Germany (1975-1998) and for the U.S. (1983-2003). In each case, we find that the data are well-characterized by nominal contracts with an average duration of about two to three quarters. We also find that new contracts exhibit very low sensitivity to marginal cost, corresponding to a relatively high degree of real rigidity. Finally, our results indicate that backward-looking price-setting behavior (such as indexation to lagged inflation) is not needed in explaining the aggregate data, at least in an environment with a stable monetary policy regime and a transparent and credible inflation objective.     

Convenient prices, currency, and nominal rigidity: Theory with evidence from newspaper prices

Certain items’ prices are often set to simplify and expedite transactions, by coinciding with available monetary units, requiring few pieces of money, or requiring little change. In this sense, these prices are more convenient than other proximate prices. This paper models a firm that explicitly incorporates convenience into its pricing decisions—where convenience is quantified by the number of currency units in a transaction—and illustrates the theoretical behaviors that can arise. Newspaper cover price data empirically support the theory. Across a broader range of goods and services, convenience appears to play a role in effecting above-average nominal price rigidity.     

Discretionary monetary policy and the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates

Ignoring the existence of the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates one considerably understates the value of monetary commitment in New Keynesian models. A stochastic forward-looking model with an occasionally binding lower bound, calibrated to the U.S. economy, suggests that low values for the natural rate of interest lead to sizeable output losses and deflation under discretionary monetary policy. The fall in output and deflation are much larger than in the case with policy commitment and do not show up at all if the model abstracts from the existence of the lower bound. The welfare losses of discretionary policy increase even further when inflation is partly determined by lagged inflation in the Phillips curve. These results emerge because private sector expectations and the discretionary policy response to these expectations reinforce each other and cause the lower bound to be reached much earlier than under commitment.     

Labor‐Market Institutions and Long‐Term Effects of Youth Unemployment

Graduating from a school during a time of adverse economic conditions has a persistent, harmful effect on workers’ subsequent employment opportunities. An analysis of panel data from OECD countries during the 1960–2010 periods reveals that a worker who experiences a 1 percentage point higher unemployment rate while the worker is 16–24 years old has a 0.14 percentage point higher unemployment rate at ages 25–29 years and 0.03 percentage points higher at ages 30–34 years. The persistence of this negative effect is stronger in countries with stricter employment protection legislation. A composite index for labor‐market rigidity is constructed and the index is shown to have positive correlation with the persistence. Moderating macroeconomic fluctuations is more important in countries that have more persistent labor‐market entry effects on subsequent outcomes.     

Crude substitution: The cyclical dynamics of oil prices and the skill premium

At the business cycle frequency, energy prices and the skill premium display a strong, negative correlation. This fact is robust to different de-trending procedures. Identifying exogenous shocks to oil prices using the Hoover-Perez [1994. Post hoc ergo propter once more: an evaluation of ‘Does monetary policy matter?’ in the spirit of James Tobin. Journal of Monetary Econonmics 34, 47-73] dates, shows that the skill premium falls in response to such a shock. The estimation of the parameters of an aggregate technology that uses, among other inputs, energy and heterogeneous skills, demonstrates that capital-skill and capital-energy complementarity are responsible for this correlation. As energy prices rise, the use of capital decreases and the demand for unskilled labor—relative to skilled labor—increases, lowering the skill premium.     

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.     

Japan's Phillips Curve Looks Like Japan

During the past 15 years Japan has experienced unprecedented, high unemployment rates and low (often negative) inflation rates. This research shows that these outcomes were predictable as part of a stable, readily recognized Phillips curve.