IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/canjec/v36y2003i4p923-948.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A cross‐country comparison of the cyclicality of real wages

Author

Listed:
  • Haoming Liu

Abstract

. This paper contains the first cross‐country comparison of the cyclical behaviour of real wages using microdata. After controlling for changes in labour quality, I find that real wages are strongly procyclical in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In contrast, the cyclicality of government‐published real aggregate hourly wages varies substantially across these three countries. The disparity suggests that a direct comparison of the cyclical behaviour of real aggregate wages is misleading. Finally, I show that variations in labour quality also bias the cross‐country correlation of several key labour market variables. JEL classification: J3, E3 Une comparaison transversale entre pays du caractère cyclique des salaires réels. Ce mémoire présente la première comparaison entre pays du comportement cyclique des salaires réels à l’aide de micro‐données. Après normalisation pour tenir compte des changements dans la qualité du travail, cette étude montre que les salaires réels sont pro‐cycliques au Canada, au Royaume‐Uni et aux Etats Unis. Au contraire, le caractère cyclique des données sur les salaires horaires agrégés varie substantiellement entre ces trois pays. Cette disparité suggère qu’une comparaison directe du comportement cyclique des salaires réels agrégés peut être trompeuse. Finalement, cette étude montre que les variations dans la qualité du travail biaisent aussi les corrélations entre pays de plusieurs variables du marché du travail.

Suggested Citation

  • Haoming Liu, 2003. "A cross‐country comparison of the cyclicality of real wages," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 36(4), pages 923-948, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:canjec:v:36:y:2003:i:4:p:923-948
    DOI: 10.1111/1540-5982.t01-3-00007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-5982.t01-3-00007
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1540-5982.t01-3-00007?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Canova, Fabio, 1998. "Detrending and business cycle facts," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 475-512, May.
    2. Gary Solon & Robert Barsky & Jonathan A. Parker, 1994. "Measuring the Cyclicality of Real Wages: How Important is Composition Bias?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(1), pages 1-25.
    3. Audra Bowlus & Haoming Liu & Chris Robinson, 2002. "Business Cycle Models, Aggregation, and Real Wage Cyclicality," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(2), pages 308-335, Part.
    4. John M. Abowd & Francis Kramarz & David N. Margolis, 1999. "High Wage Workers and High Wage Firms," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(2), pages 251-334, March.
    5. Amanda Gosling & Stephen Machin & Costas Meghir, 2000. "The Changing Distribution of Male Wages in the U.K," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(4), pages 635-666.
    6. Geary, Patrick T & Kennan, John, 1982. "The Employment-Real Wage Relationship: An International Study," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(4), pages 854-871, August.
    7. Bils, Mark J, 1985. "Real Wages over the Business Cycle: Evidence from Panel Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(4), pages 666-689, August.
    8. Pierre Danthine, Jean & Donaldson, John B., 1993. "Methodological and empirical issues in real business cycle theory," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 1-35, January.
    9. Juhn, Chinhui & Murphy, Kevin M & Pierce, Brooks, 1993. "Wage Inequality and the Rise in Returns to Skill," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(3), pages 410-442, June.
    10. Blank, Rebecca M, 1990. "Why Are Wages Cyclical in the 1970s?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(1), pages 16-47, January.
    11. Burbidge, John B & Magee, Lonnie & Robb, A Leslie, 1997. "Canadian Wage Inequality over the Last Two Decades," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 181-203.
    12. Meghir, Costas & Whitehouse, Edward, 1996. "The Evolution of Wages in the United Kingdom: Evidence from Micro Data," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 14(1), pages 1-25, January.
    13. Finn E. Kydland (ed.), 1995. "Business Cycle Theory," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 565, December.
    14. Heckman, James J & Sedlacek, Guilherme, 1985. "Heterogeneity, Aggregation, and Market Wage Functions: An Empirical Model of Self-selection in the Labor Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(6), pages 1077-1125, December.
    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. Chassamboulli, Andri, 2013. "Labor-market volatility in a matching model with worker heterogeneity and endogenous separations," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 217-229.
    2. Michael W. L. Elsby & Donggyun Shin & Gary Solon, 2016. "Wage Adjustment in the Great Recession and Other Downturns: Evidence from the United States and Great Britain," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(S1), pages 249-291.
    3. Chandranath Amarasekara & George J. Bratsiotis, 2012. "Monetary policy and real wage cyclicality," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(33), pages 4391-4408, November.
    4. Seonyoung Park & Donggyun Shin, 2019. "Inflation And Wage Rigidity/Flexibility In The Short Run," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 57(3), pages 1675-1697, July.
    5. Ulrich Woitek, 2004. "Real Wages and Business Cycle Asymmetries," CESifo Working Paper Series 1206, CESifo.
    6. Xin Xu & Robert Kaestner, 2010. "The Business Cycle and Health Behaviors," NBER Working Papers 15737, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Xu, Xin, 2013. "The business cycle and health behaviors," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 126-136.
    8. Seonyoung Park & Donggyun Shin, 2019. "Inflation And Wage Rigidity/Flexibility In The Short Run," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 57(3), pages 1675-1697, July.

    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. Audra Bowlus & Haoming Liu & Chris Robinson, 2002. "Business Cycle Models, Aggregation, and Real Wage Cyclicality," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(2), pages 308-335, Part.
    2. Pedro Carneiro & Sokbae Lee, 2011. "Trends in Quality-Adjusted Skill Premia in the United States, 1960-2000," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2309-2349, October.
    3. Lokshin, Boris & Mohnen, Pierre, 2008. "Wage effects of R&D tax incentives:Evidence from the Netherlands," MERIT Working Papers 2008-034, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    4. Michal Myck & Leszek Morawski & Jerzy Mycielski, 2006. "Employment Fluctuations and Dynamics of the Aggregate Average Wage in Poland 1996 - 2003," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 545, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    5. Pedro Portugal & Anabela Carneiro, 2004. "Workers' Flows and Real Wage Cyclicality," Working Papers w200409, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    6. Lili Kang & Fei Peng, 2017. "Wage flexibility in the Chinese labour market, 1989–2009," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(4), pages 616-628, April.
    7. Gu, Grace Weishi & Prasad, Eswar, 2018. "New Evidence on Cyclical Variation in Labor Costs in the U.S," IZA Discussion Papers 11311, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Xin Xu & Robert Kaestner, 2010. "The Business Cycle and Health Behaviors," NBER Working Papers 15737, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Lokshin, Boris & Mohnen, Pierre, 2013. "Do R&D tax incentives lead to higher wages for R&D workers? Evidence from The Netherlands," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 823-830.
    10. Monica Galizzi, 2007. "Wage Changes, Establishment Growth, and the Effect of Composition Bias," LABORatorio R. Revelli Working Papers Series 64, LABORatorio R. Revelli, Centre for Employment Studies.
    11. Sophia Dimelis, 1997. "Cyclical and causal relations between real wages and employment in the EU," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(3), pages 311-324.
    12. Richard Blundell & Howard Reed & Thomas M. Stoker, 2003. "Interpreting Aggregate Wage Growth: The Role of Labor Market Participation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1114-1131, September.
    13. Monica Galizzi, 2005. "Wage Changes, Establishment Growth, and the Effect of Composition Bias," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 31(2), pages 165-184, Spring.
    14. Xu, Xin, 2013. "The business cycle and health behaviors," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 126-136.
    15. Pedro S. Martins, 2007. "Heterogeneity In Real Wage Cyclicality," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 54(5), pages 684-698, November.
    16. Jean-Marc Robin & Costas Meghir & Christian Dustmann & Jerome Adda, 2013. "Career Progression, Economic Downturns, and Skills," 2013 Meeting Papers 993, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    17. Grégory Verdugo & Henry Fraisse & Guillaume Horny, 2012. "Changes In Wage Inequality In France: The Impact Of Composition Effects (in French)," Working papers 370, Banque de France.
    18. Burgess, Simon & Lane, Julia & Stevens, David, 1997. "Jobs, Workers and Changes in Earnings Dispersion," CEPR Discussion Papers 1714, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Verdugo, Gregory, 2014. "The great compression of the French wage structure, 1969–2008," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 131-144.
    20. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1umfa09lat214kj4 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. James Hines & Hilary Hoynes & Alan Krueger, 2001. "Another Look at Whether a Rising Tide Lifts All Boats," Working Papers 833, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs
    • E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles

    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:wly:canjec:v:36:y:2003:i:4:p:923-948. 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 Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1540-5982 .

    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.