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Can Productivity Growth Explain NAIRU? Long-run Evidence from Britain, 1871-1999

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Author Info
Hatton, Timothy J.

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Abstract

The ‘new economy’ of the 1990s saw improving Phillips curve trade-offs coupled with faster productivity growth, particularly in the United States. This has led to a revival of the idea that there is an inverse relationship between productivity growth and the Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment (NAIRU). Because productivity trends evolve slowly, such effects have been difficult to identify using short runs of data. This paper investigates this relationship over a much longer period than usual. It draws on recently developed, historically-consistent, time series for the UK from 1871 to 1999. A two-equation model of unemployment and wage setting, that incorporates productivity effects, is estimated over the whole period allowing for shifts across major periods associated with changes in labour market institutions. The results indicate that trends in labour productivity do matter, but they go only part of the way towards explaining wide swings in average unemployment across the decades. Thus productivity is not the whole story, but it is some of the story. In addition, institutional changes appear to have enhanced the effects of productivity on the NAIRU, particularly in the post-Second World War era.

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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 3424.

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Date of creation: Jun 2002
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Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:3424

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Related research
Keywords: productivity growth; unemployment;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
N14 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Growth and Fluctuations - - - Europe: 1913-
N34 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Income, and Wealth - - - Europe: 1913-

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