IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ecj/econjl/v116y2006i508p283-308.html

Nominal Wage Flexibility, Wage Indexation and Monetary Union

Author

Listed:
  • Lars Calmfors
  • Asa Johansson

Abstract

Membership in a monetary union implies stronger incentives for nominal wage flexibility in the form of wage indexation and shorter contract length than non-membership. This counteracts the stabilisation policy cost of giving up monetary independence. But more wage flexibility is only an imperfect substitute for an individual monetary policy. It is possible that an increase in wage flexibility is welfare-decreasing because of the accompanying rise in price variability. The interaction between wage setting and central bank behaviour may result in either multiple equilibria or a unique full-indexation equilibrium. Copyright 2006 Royal Economic Society.

Suggested Citation

  • Lars Calmfors & Asa Johansson, 2006. "Nominal Wage Flexibility, Wage Indexation and Monetary Union," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(508), pages 283-308, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecj:econjl:v:116:y:2006:i:508:p:283-308
    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
    for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Camba-Méndez, Gonzalo & Garcí­a, Juan Angel & Rodriguez-Palenzuela, Diego, 2003. "Relevant economic issues concerning the optimal rate of inflation," Working Paper Series 278, European Central Bank.
    2. Jonung, Lars & Fregert, Klas, 2008. "Inflation Targeting Is a Success, So Far: 100 Years of Evidence from Swedish Wage Contracts," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy, vol. 2, pages 1-25.
    3. Liam Graham & Dennis J. Snower, 2008. "Hyperbolic Discounting and the Phillips Curve," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(2-3), pages 427-448, March.
    4. James, Jonathan G. & Lawler, Phillip, 2010. "Macroeconomic shocks, unionized labour markets and central bank disclosure policy: How beneficial is increased transparency?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 506-516, December.
    5. Marotzke Petra & Anderton Robert & Bairrao Ana & Berson Clémence & Tóth Peter, 2020. "Asymmetric wage adjustment and employment in European firms," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 20(2), pages 1-25, June.
    6. Ozge Senay & Alan Sutherland, 2014. "Endogenous price flexibility and optimal monetary policy," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 66(4), pages 1121-1144.
    7. Peeters, Marga & Den Reijer, Ard, 2011. "On wage formation, wage flexibility and wage coordination : A focus on the wage impact of productivity in Germany, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and the United States," MPRA Paper 31102, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. James, Jonathan G. & Lawler, Phillip, 2011. "Optimal delegation implications of central bank transparency," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 113(1), pages 8-11, October.
    9. Carrillo, Julio A. & Peersman, Gert & Wauters, Joris, 2022. "Endogenous wage indexation and aggregate shocks," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    10. James, Jonathan G. & Lawler, Phillip, 2010. "Union objectives and indexation externalities in a monopolistically competitive economy," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 28-35, March.
    11. Geronikolaou, George & Spyromitros, Eleftherios & Tsintzos, Panagiotis, 2016. "Inflation persistence: The path of labor market structural reforms," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 317-322.
    12. Ozge Senay & Alan Sutherland, 2014. "Endogenous price flexibility and optimal monetary policy," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 66(4), pages 1121-1144.
    13. Alho, Kari E.O., 2006. "Structural Reforms in the EU and Political Myopia in Economic Policies," Discussion Papers 1050, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    14. Liam Graham & Dennis J. Snower, 2008. "Hyperbolic Discounting and the Phillips Curve," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(2‐3), pages 427-448, March.
    15. Hyuk Jae Rhee & Jeongseok Song, 2017. "Real Wage Flexibility, Economic Fluctuations, and Exchange Rate Regimes," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 28(4), pages 633-659, September.
    16. Giuseppe Diana & Pierre‐Guillaume Méon, 2008. "Monetary Policy in the Presence of Asymmetric Wage Indexation," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 75(1), pages 69-90, July.
    17. Andrzej Torój, 2010. "Rationality of Expectations: Another OCA Criterion? A DSGE Analysis," Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, vol. 2(3), pages 205-252, June.
    18. Tilemahos Efthimiadis, 2007. "On Central Bank Independence, Wage Indexing And A Monopoly Union," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(1), pages 25-36, January.
    19. Iulia Siedschlag, 2008. "Macroeconomic Differentials and Adjustment in the Euro Area," SUERF Studies, SUERF - The European Money and Finance Forum, number 2008/3 edited by Morten Balling, May.
    20. Marga Peeters & Ard den Reijer, 2014. "Coordination versus flexibility in wage formation: a focus on the nominal wage impact of productivity in Germany, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and the United States," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(7), pages 698-714, March.
    21. Geronikolaou, George & Spyromitros, Eleftherios & Tsintzos, Panagiotis, 2020. "Progressive taxation and human capital as determinants of inflation persistence," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 82-97.
    22. James, Jonathan G. & Lawler, Phillip, 2006. "Productivity, indexation and macroeconomic outcomes: The implications of goods market competition and wage bargaining structure," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 58(5-6), pages 465-479.
    23. Frank Heinemann, 2003. "The Inflationary Impact of Wage Indexation," CESifo Working Paper Series 867, CESifo.
    24. Frank Heinemann, 2006. "Wage Indexation and Monetary Policy," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 162(3), pages 486-504, September.
    25. Gottfries, Nils, 2003. "Booms and Busts in EMU," Working Paper Series 2003:29, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.

    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
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • F33 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Monetary Arrangements and Institutions
    • F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics

    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:116:y:2006:i:508:p:283-308. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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.