IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ecj/econjl/v115y2005i506p907-927.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Wage Rigidity and Monetary Union

Author

Listed:
  • Harris Dellas
  • George Tavlas

Abstract

We compare monetary union to flexible exchange rates in an asymmetric, three-country model with active monetary policy. We find that countries with a high degree of nominal wage rigidity benefit from monetary union, especially when they join other, similarly rigid countries. Countries with relatively more flexible wages tend to be worse off in unions with countries that have more rigid wages. We examine France, Germany and the UK and find that the welfare implications of monetary arrangements depend more on the degree of wage asymmetry than on other types of asymmetries and that the higher wage flexibility in the UK would make its participation in EMU costly. Copyright 2005 Royal Economic Society.

Suggested Citation

  • Harris Dellas & George Tavlas, 2005. "Wage Rigidity and Monetary Union," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(506), pages 907-927, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecj:econjl:v:115:y:2005:i:506:p:907-927
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth Rogoff, 2002. "Global Implications of Self-Oriented National Monetary Rules," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(2), pages 503-535.
    2. George S. Tavlas, 1993. "The ‘New’ Theory of Optimum Currency Areas," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(6), pages 663-685, November.
    3. Michael B. Devereux & Charles Engel, 2003. "Monetary Policy in the Open Economy Revisited: Price Setting and Exchange-Rate Flexibility," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(4), pages 765-783.
    4. Clarida, Richard & Gali, Jordi & Gertler, Mark, 2002. "A simple framework for international monetary policy analysis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(5), pages 879-904, July.
    5. Robert G. King, 2000. "The new IS-LM model : language, logic, and limits," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue Sum, pages 45-103.
    6. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Charles L. Evans, 2005. "Nominal Rigidities and the Dynamic Effects of a Shock to Monetary Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 1-45, February.
    7. V. V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe & Ellen R. McGrattan, 1997. "Monetary Shocks and Real Exchange Rates in Sticky Price Models of International Business Cycles," NBER Working Papers 5876, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Collard, Fabrice & Dellas, Harris, 2002. "Exchange rate systems and macroeconomic stability," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 571-599, April.
    9. William Poole, 1969. "Optimal choice of monetary policy instruments in a simple stochastic macro model," Special Studies Papers 2, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    10. Finn E. Kydland (ed.), 1995. "Business Cycle Theory," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 565.
    11. Benigno, Pierpaolo & Benigno, Gianluca, 2001. "Monetary Policy Rules and the Exchange Rate," CEPR Discussion Papers 2807, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Stephen Nickell, 1997. "Unemployment and Labor Market Rigidities: Europe versus North America," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 55-74, Summer.
    13. Engel, Charles & Devereux, Michael B, 2000. "Monetary Policy In The Open Economy Revisited: Price Setting Rules And Exchange Rate Flexibility," CEPR Discussion Papers 2454, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Woodford Michael, 2002. "Inflation Stabilization and Welfare," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 2(1), pages 1-53, February.
    15. David Backus & Patrick J. Kehoe & Finn E. Kydland, 1993. "International Business Cycles: Theory and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 4493, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Kollmann, Robert, 2002. "Monetary policy rules in the open economy: effects on welfare and business cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(5), pages 989-1015, July.
    17. Duarte, Margarida, 2003. "Why don't macroeconomic quantities respond to exchange rate variability?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(4), pages 889-913, May.
    18. Dellas, Harris, 2006. "Monetary policy in open economies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(6), pages 1471-1486, August.
    19. Hughes Hallett, Andrew & Jensen, Svend E. Hougaard, 2001. "Currency unions and the incentive to reform: are market mechanisms enough?," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 139-155, July.
    20. Canzoneri, Matthew B. & Cumby, Robert E. & Diba, Behzad T., 2005. "The need for international policy coordination: what's old, what's new, what's yet to come?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 363-384, July.
    21. William Poole, 1970. "Optimal Choice of Monetary Policy Instruments in a Simple Stochastic Macro Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(2), pages 197-216.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Liu, Zheng & Pappa, Evi, 2005. "Gains from coordination in a multi-sector open economy : does it pay to be different?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 525, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Harris Dellas, 2003. "Monetary Policy in Open Economies under Imperfect Information," Working Papers 072003, Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research.
    3. Liu, Zheng & Pappa, Evi, 2008. "Gains from international monetary policy coordination: Does it pay to be different?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(7), pages 2085-2117, July.
    4. Dellas, Harris & Tavlas, George S., 2009. "An optimum-currency-area odyssey," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(7), pages 1117-1137, November.
    5. Lombardo, Giovanni & Sutherland, Alan, 2006. "Policy instrument choice and non-coordinated monetary policy in interdependent economies," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(6), pages 855-873, October.
    6. Patrick Minford & Prakriti Sofat, 2004. "An Open Economy Real Business Cycle Model for the UK," Money Macro and Finance (MMF) Research Group Conference 2004 23, Money Macro and Finance Research Group.
    7. Benigno, Pierpaolo & Benigno, Gianluca, 2002. "Implementing Monetary Cooperation Through Inflation Targeting," CEPR Discussion Papers 3226, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Nicolas Cuche-Curti & Harris Dellas & Jean-Marc Natal, 2010. "Price Stability and the Case for Flexible Exchange Rates," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 3-16, February.
    9. Lombardo, Giovanni & Sutherland, Alan, 2004. "Policy instrument choice and non-coordinated monetary in interdependent economies," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2004,03, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    10. Kollmann, Robert, 2003. "Monetary Policy Rules in an Interdependent World," CEPR Discussion Papers 4012, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Ester Faia & Tommaso Monacelli, 2003. "Ramsey monetary policy and international relative prices," Proceedings, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    12. repec:onb:oenbwp:y::i:162:b:1 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Douch, Mohamed & Essadam, Naceur, 2008. "Monetary policy conduct: A hybrid framework," MPRA Paper 20715, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Alan Sutherland, 2002. "International monetary policy coordination and financial market integration," International Finance Discussion Papers 751, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    15. Enders, Zeno & Jung, Philip & Müller, Gernot J., 2013. "Has the Euro changed the business cycle?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 189-211.
    16. Dellas, Harris & Tavlas, George, 2005. "The global implications of regional exchange rate regimes," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 243-255, March.
    17. Dellas, Harris, 2006. "Monetary policy in open economies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(6), pages 1471-1486, August.
    18. Michael Paetz, 2007. "Robust Control and Persistence in the New Keynesian Economy," Quantitative Macroeconomics Working Papers 20711, Hamburg University, Department of Economics.
    19. David D. VanHoose, 2004. "The New Open Economy Macroeconomics: A Critical Appraisal," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 193-215, April.
    20. Jordi Galí, 2008. "Monetary Policy and the Open Economy," Introductory Chapters, in: Monetary Policy, Inflation, and the Business Cycle: An Introduction to the New Keynesian Framework, Princeton University Press.
    21. Jordi Galí & Tommaso Monacelli, 2005. "Monetary Policy and Exchange Rate Volatility in a Small Open Economy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(3), pages 707-734.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E40 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - General
    • E50 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - General
    • F40 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - General

    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:ecj:econjl:v:115:y:2005:i:506:p:907-927. 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: Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing or Christopher F. Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/resssea.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.