IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/15117.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Stepping Off the Wage Escalator: The Effects of Wage Growth on Equilibrium Employment

Author

Listed:
  • Michael W. L. Elsby
  • Matthew D. Shapiro

Abstract

This paper emphasizes the role of wage growth in shaping work incentives. It provides an analytical framework for labor supply in the presence of a return to labor market experience and aggregate productivity growth. A key finding of the theory is that there is an interaction between these two forms of wage growth that explains why aggregate productivity growth can affect employment rates in steady state. The model thus speaks to an enduring puzzle in macroeconomics by uncovering a channel from the declines in trend aggregate wage growth that accompanied the productivity slowdown of the 1970s to persistent declines in employment. The paper also shows that the return to experience for high school dropouts has fallen substantially since the 1970s, which further contributes to the secular decline in employment rates. Taken together, the mechanisms identified in the paper can account for all of the increase in nonemployment among white male high school dropouts from 1968 to 2006. For all white males, it accounts for approximately one half of the increase in the aggregate nonemployment rate over the same period.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael W. L. Elsby & Matthew D. Shapiro, 2009. "Stepping Off the Wage Escalator: The Effects of Wage Growth on Equilibrium Employment," NBER Working Papers 15117, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15117
    Note: EFG LS ME PR
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w15117.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Layard, Richard & Nickell, Stephen & Jackman, Richard, 2005. "Unemployment: Macroeconomic Performance and the Labour Market," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199279173, Decembrie.
    2. Blinder, Alan S & Weiss, Yoram, 1976. "Human Capital and Labor Supply: A Synthesis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(3), pages 449-472, June.
    3. Blanchard, Olivier J. & Summers, Lawrence H., 1987. "Hysteresis in unemployment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(1-2), pages 288-295.
    4. Brooks Pierce, 2001. "Compensation Inequality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(4), pages 1493-1525.
    5. Lee, Chul-In, 2008. "On-the-job human capital investment and intertemporal substitution: New evidence on intertemporal substitution elasticity," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(10), pages 3350-3375, October.
    6. Shaw, Kathryn L, 1989. "Life-Cycle Labor Supply with Human Capital Accumulation," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 30(2), pages 431-456, May.
    7. Rubinstein, Yona & Weiss, Yoram, 2006. "Post Schooling Wage Growth: Investment, Search and Learning," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & F. Welch (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 1, pages 1-67, Elsevier.
    8. Smith, James P & Welch, Finis R, 1989. "Black Economic Progress after Myrdal," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 27(2), pages 519-564, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Daly, Mary C. & Hobijn, Bart & Pedtke, Joseph H., 2020. "Labor market dynamics and black–white earnings gaps," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    2. Michael W. L. Elsby & Matthew D. Shapiro, 2012. "Why Does Trend Growth Affect Equilibrium Employment? A New Explanation of an Old Puzzle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(4), pages 1378-1413, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michael W. L. Elsby & Matthew D. Shapiro, 2012. "Why Does Trend Growth Affect Equilibrium Employment? A New Explanation of an Old Puzzle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(4), pages 1378-1413, June.
    2. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/6120 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Engelbert Stockhammer & Simon Sturn, 2012. "The impact of monetary policy on unemployment hysteresis," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(21), pages 2743-2756, July.
    4. Christopher A. Pissarides, 2003. "Unemployment in Britain: A European Success Story," CESifo Working Paper Series 981, CESifo.
    5. Eric Heyer & Frédéric Reynès & Henri Sterdyniak, 2004. "Observable and unobservable variables in the theory of the equilibrium rate of unemployment, a comparison between France and the United States," Working Papers hal-01027420, HAL.
    6. Juan Carlos Cuestas & Luis A. Gil-Alana, 2022. "Unemployment hysteresis by sex and education attainment in the EU," Working Papers 2022/06, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).
    7. Apergis, Nicholas, 2005. "An estimation of the natural rate of unemployment in Greece," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 91-99, February.
    8. Mikael Carlsson & Stefan Eriksson & Nils Gottfries, 2006. "Testing Theories of Job Creation: Does Supply Create Its Own Demand?," CESifo Working Paper Series 1866, CESifo.
    9. Kurmaş Akdoğan, 2017. "Unemployment hysteresis and structural change in Europe," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 53(4), pages 1415-1440, December.
    10. Camille Logeay & Silke Tober, 2003. "Time-Varying Nairu and Real Interest Rates in the Euro Area," Economics Working Papers 024, European Network of Economic Policy Research Institutes.
    11. Odile Chagny & Frédéric Reynès & Henri Sterdyniak, 2002. "The equilibrium rate of unemployment : a theoretical discussion and an empirical evaluation for six OECD countries," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-01027421, HAL.
    12. Marjan Petreski & Nikica Mojsoska-Blazevski, 2013. "Real Wages in the Manufacturing Industry in Macedonia: The Role of Macroeconomic Factors, with Reference to Recession Times," Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(4), pages 113-126, January.
    13. Lars Ljungqvist & Thomas J. Sargent, 1996. "A supply-side explanation of European unemployment," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 20(Sep), pages 2-15.
    14. Emilio Congregado & Antonio Golpe & Simon Parker, 2012. "The dynamics of entrepreneurship: hysteresis, business cycles and government policy," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 43(3), pages 1239-1261, December.
    15. Lars Ljungqvist & Thomas J. Sargent, 1998. "The European Unemployment Dilemma," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(3), pages 514-550, June.
    16. Aurélien GAIMON & Vincent LAPEGUE & Paola MONPERRUS-VERONI & Noé N’SEMI & Frédéric REYNÈS & Maël THEULIERE, 2007. "Does the interaction between shocks and institutions solve the OECD unemployment puzzle? a Theoretical and Empirical Appraisal," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2007-34, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE).
    17. Laurence Ball & N. Gregory Mankiw, 2002. "The NAIRU in Theory and Practice," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(4), pages 115-136, Fall.
    18. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/2005 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Olivier Blanchard & Lawrence F. Katz, 1997. "What We Know and Do Not Know about the Natural Rate of Unemployment," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 51-72, Winter.
    20. Caporale, Guglielmo Maria & Gil-Alana, Luis A., 2008. "Modelling the US, UK and Japanese unemployment rates: Fractional integration and structural breaks," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 52(11), pages 4998-5013, July.
    21. Lucas Papademos, 2005. "Macroeconomic theory and monetary policy: the contributions of Franco Modigliani and the ongoing debate," BNL Quarterly Review, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, vol. 58(233-234), pages 187-214.
    22. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/9081 is not listed on IDEAS
    23. Mayes, David G. & Vilmunen, Jouko, 1999. "Unemployment in a small open economy: Finland and New Zealand," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 10/1999, Bank of Finland.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J2 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor
    • J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15117. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.