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How Do Nominal and Real Rigidities Interact? A Tale of the Second Best

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  • ROMAIN DUVAL
  • LUKAS VOGEL

Abstract

This paper analyzes the importance of real wage rigidities, in particular through their interaction with price stickiness, in a New Keynesian model. Real wage rigidities result from a combination of staggered wage setting and partial indexation of nonreset wages to past inflation. Blanchard and Galí (2007) show real rigidities to introduce a trade‐off between stabilizing inflation and the welfare‐relevant output gap. The present paper complements their findings by showing that the welfare costs of real rigidities can be substantial compared to nominal frictions. In a typical “tale of the second best,” we also show that in the presence of real wage rigidities, higher price stickiness can be welfare enhancing.

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  • Romain Duval & Lukas Vogel, 2012. "How Do Nominal and Real Rigidities Interact? A Tale of the Second Best," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(7), pages 1455-1474, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jmoncb:v:44:y:2012:i:7:p:1455-1474
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1538-4616.2012.00540.x
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    Cited by:

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    2. Romain Duval & Lukas Vogel, 2008. "Oil Price Shocks, Rigidities and the Conduct of Monetary Policy: Some Lessons from a New Keynesian Perspective," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 603, OECD Publishing.
    3. M. Alper Çenesiz & Luís Guimarães, 2019. "Sticky Price Models, Durable Goods, and Real Wage Rigidities," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(2-3), pages 721-737, March.
    4. Vogel, Lukas, 2011. "Interacting nominal and real labour market rigidities," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 111(3), pages 264-267, June.
    5. Knell, Markus, 2013. "Nominal and real wage rigidities. In theory and in Europe," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 89-105.
    6. repec:onb:oenbwp:y::i:161:b:1 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Stefan Hohberger & Lukas Vogel & Bernhard Herz, 2014. "Budgetary-Neutral Fiscal Policy Rules and External Adjustment," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 25(5), pages 909-936, November.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E30 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics
    • Q43 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Energy and the Macroeconomy

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