IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedfel/00145.html

Has the Wage Phillips Curve Gone Dormant?

Author

Abstract

Although the labor market has steadily strengthened, wage growth has remained slow in recent years. This raises the question of whether the wage Phillips curve?the traditional relationship between labor market slack and wage growth?has weakened. Estimating a causal link from slack to wage growth using national data is difficult. However, using city-level data over the past 25 years shows that the cross-city relationship has weakened since the Great Recession. Explanations consistent with this timing suggest that the Phillips curve may return to a steeper curve in the future.

Suggested Citation

  • Sylvain Leduc & Daniel J. Wilson, 2017. "Has the Wage Phillips Curve Gone Dormant?," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedfel:00145
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/files/el2017-30.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Autor & David Dorn & Lawrence F. Katz & Christina Patterson & John Van Reenen, 2017. "Concentrating on the Fall of the Labor Share," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(5), pages 180-185, May.
    2. Greg Kaplan & Sam Schulhofer‐Wohl, 2017. "Understanding The Long‐Run Decline In Interstate Migration," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 58, pages 57-94, February.
    3. Terry J. Fitzgerald & Juan Pablo Nicolini, 2014. "Is There a Stable Relationship between Unemployment and Future Inflation? Evidence from U.S. Cities," Working Papers 713, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    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. Daniele Siena & Riccardo Zago, 2021. "Job Polarization and the Flattening of the Price Phillips Curve," Working papers 819, Banque de France.
    2. Hall, Robert E. & Kudlyak, Marianna, 2025. "The active role of the natural rate of unemployment," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(4).
    3. Stefański, Maciej, 2022. "Macroeconomic effects and transmission channels of quantitative easing," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    4. Dufrénot, Gilles & Rhouzlane, Meryem & Vaccaro-Grange, Etienne, 2022. "Potential growth and natural yield curve in Japan," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    5. Renaud St-Cyr, 2018. "Non-linéarité de la courbe de Phillips : un survol de la littérature," Staff Analytical Notes 2018-3, Bank of Canada.
    6. Kapetanios, George & Price, Simon & Tasiou, Menelaos & Ventouri, Alexia, 2021. "State-level wage Phillips curves," Econometrics and Statistics, Elsevier, vol. 18(C), pages 1-11.
    7. Hooper, Peter & Mishkin, Frederic S. & Sufi, Amir, 2020. "Prospects for inflation in a high pressure economy: Is the Phillips curve dead or is it just hibernating?," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 26-62.
    8. Maciej Stefański, 2021. "Macroeconomic Effects of Quantitative Easing Using Mid-sized Bayesian Vector Autoregressions," KAE Working Papers 2021-068, Warsaw School of Economics, Collegium of Economic Analysis.
    9. Smith, Simon & Timmermann, Allan & Wright, Jonathan, 2023. "Breaks in the Phillips Curve: Evidence from Panel Data," CEPR Discussion Papers 18033, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    10. Benjamin Garcia & Arsenios Skaperdas, 2017. "Inferring the Shadow Rate from Real Activity," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2017-106, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    11. Sophia Panteeva & Sergey Arzhenovskiy & Karen Tumanyants, 2025. "Semi-Structural Model of Economy of the Southern Macroregion of Russia," Russian Journal of Money and Finance, Bank of Russia, vol. 84(2), pages 65-88, June.
    12. Kumhof, Michael & Wang, Xuan, 2021. "Banks, money, and the zero lower bound on deposit rates," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).

    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. Marwil J. Dávila-Fernández, 2019. "Manufacture Content and Financialisation: An Empirical Assessment," Department of Economics University of Siena 811, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    2. Chu, Shiou-Yen, 2020. "A note on labor share, price markup and monetary policy," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    3. Shaun A. Golding & Richelle L. Winkler, 2020. "Tracking Urbanization and Exurbs: Migration Across the Rural–Urban Continuum, 1990–2016," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 39(5), pages 835-859, October.
    4. Daniele Siena & Riccardo Zago, 2021. "Job Polarization and the Flattening of the Price Phillips Curve," Working papers 819, Banque de France.
    5. Perotti, Enrico & Döttling, Robin, 2017. "Secular Trends and Technological Progress," CEPR Discussion Papers 12519, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    6. Marco Del Negro & Michele Lenza & Giorgio E. Primiceri & Andrea Tambalotti, 2020. "What's Up with the Phillips Curve?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 51(1 (Spring), pages 301-373.
    7. Ufuk Akcigit & Sina T. Ates, 2023. "What Happened to US Business Dynamism?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 131(8), pages 2059-2124.
    8. Budzinski, Oliver & Stöhr, Annika, 2024. "Perfect competition, market power, and contestability," Ilmenau Economics Discussion Papers 189, Ilmenau University of Technology, Institute of Economics.
    9. Cucu, Florin, 2025. "Roads, internal migration and the spatial sorting of U.S. high-skill workers," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    10. John Van Reenen, 2018. "Increasing differences between firms: market power and the macro-economy," CEP Discussion Papers dp1576, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    11. Joshua Greenstein, 2020. "The Precariat Class Structure and Income Inequality among US Workers: 1980–2018," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 52(3), pages 447-469, September.
    12. Florian Botte & Laurent Cordonnier & Thomas Dallery & Vincent Duwicquet & Jordan Melmies & Franck van de Velde, 2017. "The cost of capital: between losses and diversion of wealth [Le coût du capital : entre pertes et détournement de richesses]," Working Papers hal-01711157, HAL.
    13. Basu, Arnab K. & Chau, Nancy H. & Lin, Gary C., 2026. "On migration gravity with status quo bias and job search frictions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 248(C).
    14. Satyajit Chatterjee & Burcu Eyigungor, 2023. "The Firm Size-Leverage Relationship and Its Implications for Entry and Business Concentration," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 48, pages 132-157, April.
    15. Zhigang Feng & Anne Villamil, 2022. "Funding employer-based insurance: regressive taxation and premium exclusions," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 73(2), pages 509-540, April.
    16. Marwil J. Dávila-Fernández & Lionello F. Punzo, 2018. "Some New Insights on Financialisation and Income Inequality," Department of Economics University of Siena 792, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    17. Lin William Cong & Zhiguo He & Jiasun Li & Wei Jiang, 2021. "Decentralized Mining in Centralized Pools [Concentrating on the fall of the labor share]," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(3), pages 1191-1235.
    18. Lavecchia, Adam & McKercher, Robert & Tazhitdinova, Alisa, 2026. "Should I Stay or Should I Go? The Impact of Taxation on Canadian Inter-Provincial Migration," IZA Discussion Papers 18544, IZA Network @ LISER.
    19. Benoît Schmutz & Modibo Sidibé, 2019. "Frictional Labour Mobility," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(4), pages 1779-1826.
    20. Yamada, Tomoaki, 2025. "Macroeconomic and fiscal implications of changes in the labor share under population aging in Japan," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 32(C).

    More about this item

    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:fip:fedfel:00145. 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: Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Research Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbsfus.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.