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Factor intensity and price rigidity: evidence and theory

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  • Ekaterina V. Peneva
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    Abstract

    This paper establishes a new empirical finding: the degree of labor intensity and the degree of price flexibility are negatively correlated across industrial sectors. I model this in an economy with staggered nominal wage contracts and production sectors that differ in labor and capital intensities. Nominal disturbances affect capital-intensive and labor-intensive sectors asymmetrically: prices of labor-intensive goods change less than do prices of capital-intensive goods. In addition, when prices are costly to adjust, more firms in the capital-intensive sectors optimally choose to update their prices than firms in the labor-intensive sectors. Thus, varying factor intensity generates different degrees of price stickiness across sectors that face the same degree of wage rigidity.

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    Bibliographic Info

    Paper provided by Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.) in its series Finance and Economics Discussion Series with number 2009-07.

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    Date of creation: 2009
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    Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2009-07

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    Related research

    Keywords: Prices ; Wages;

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