IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/anc/wmofir/41.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Wage Bargaining and the Phillips Curve in Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Alessandra Del Boca

    (University of Brescia)

  • Michele Fratianni

    (Indiana University, Kelly School of Business, Bloomington US, Univ. Plitecnica Marche and MoFiR)

  • Franco Spinelli

    (University of Brescia)

  • Carmine Trecroci

    (University of Brescia)

Abstract

The theme of this paper is whether there was a textbook-like Phillips Curve in post-WWII Italy. We estimate a standard model of the relationship between inflation and the level of real economic activity over the 1949-1998 period and find no evidence of a significant and positive feedback from output to prices. We also estimate similar models for the UK and the US and compare them with the Italian experience. Italy stands out as sharply different from the two Anglo-Saxon countries. We attribute this difference, among other factors, to the role of wage coordination and indexation mechanisms. In particular, the scala mobile, the rigid indexation mechanism aimed at protecting wages from inflation contributed to the persistent inflation bias that Italy experienced almost until its entry into the EMU.

Suggested Citation

  • Alessandra Del Boca & Michele Fratianni & Franco Spinelli & Carmine Trecroci, 2010. "Wage Bargaining and the Phillips Curve in Italy," Mo.Fi.R. Working Papers 41, Money and Finance Research group (Mo.Fi.R.) - Univ. Politecnica Marche - Dept. Economic and Social Sciences.
    • Handle: RePEc:anc:wmofir:41
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://docs.dises.univpm.it/web/quaderni/pdfmofir/Mofir041.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2010
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Doan & Robert B. Litterman & Christopher A. Sims, 1983. "Forecasting and Conditional Projection Using Realistic Prior Distributions," NBER Working Papers 1202, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2007. "Why Has U.S. Inflation Become Harder to Forecast?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(s1), pages 3-33, February.
    3. Kim, Chang-Jin & Nelson, Charles R., 2006. "Estimation of a forward-looking monetary policy rule: A time-varying parameter model using ex post data," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(8), pages 1949-1966, November.
    4. Chang-jin Kim & N. Kundan Kishor & Charles R Nelson, 2006. "A Time-Varying Parameter Model for a Forward-Looking Monetary Policy Rule Based on Real-Time Data," Working Papers UWEC-2007-32, University of Washington, Department of Economics.
    5. Marco Manacorda, 2004. "Can the Scala Mobile Explain the Fall and Rise of Earnings Inequality in Italy? A Semiparametric Analysis, 19771993," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(3), pages 585-614, July.
    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. Deev Oleg & Hodula Martin, 2016. "The Long-Run Superneutrality of Money Revised: the Extended European Evidence," Review of Economic Perspectives, Sciendo, vol. 16(3), pages 187-203, September.

    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. Del Boca, Alessandra & Fratianni, Michele & Spinelli, Franco & Trecroci, Carmine, 2010. "The Phillips curve and the Italian lira, 1861-1998," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 182-197, August.
    2. Alessandra Del Boca & Michele Fratianni & Franco Spinelli & Carmine Trecroci, 2009. "Wage Bargaining Coordination and the Phillips Curve in Italy," Working Papers 0901, University of Brescia, Department of Economics.
    3. Carmine Trecroci & Matilde Vassalli, 2010. "Monetary Policy Regime Shifts: New Evidence From Time‐Varying Interest Rate Rules," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 48(4), pages 933-950, October.
    4. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2008_020 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Nalan Basturk & Cem Cakmakli & Pinar Ceyhan & Herman K. van Dijk, 2013. "Posterior-Predictive Evidence on US Inflation using Phillips Curve Models with Non-Filtered Time Series," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 13-011/III, Tinbergen Institute.
    6. Castelnuovo, Efrem & Greco, Luciano & Raggi, Davide, 2008. "Estimating regime-switching Taylor rules with trend inflation," Research Discussion Papers 20/2008, Bank of Finland.
    7. Jinho Bae & Chang-Jin Kim & Dong Kim, 2012. "The evolution of the monetary policy regimes in the U.S," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 43(2), pages 617-649, October.
    8. Fan, Longzhen & Yu, Yihong & Zhang, Chu, 2011. "An empirical evaluation of China's monetary policies," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 358-371, June.
    9. Todd E. Clark & Michael W. McCracken, 2010. "Averaging forecasts from VARs with uncertain instabilities," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(1), pages 5-29, January.
    10. Baele, Lieven & Bekaert, Geert & Cho, Seonghoon & Inghelbrecht, Koen & Moreno, Antonio, 2015. "Macroeconomic regimes," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 51-71.
    11. Zhang, Chengsi & Dang, Chao, 2018. "Is monetary policy forward-looking in China?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 4-14.
    12. Kutlu, Levent, 2010. "Battese-coelli estimator with endogenous regressors," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 109(2), pages 79-81, November.
    13. Park, Cheolbeom & Park, Sookyung, 2013. "Exchange rate predictability and a monetary model with time-varying cointegration coefficients," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 394-410.
    14. Dennis Wesselbaum, 2022. "Cheap Talk in a New Keynesian Model," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 20(3), pages 661-691, September.
    15. Ronald Henry Lange, 2018. "The Monetary Transmission Mechanism in Canada: A Time-Varying Vector Autoregression with Stochastic Volatility," Applied Economics and Finance, Redfame publishing, vol. 5(6), pages 42-51, November.
    16. Kevin Lee & James Morley & Kalvinder Shields, 2015. "The Meta Taylor Rule," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(1), pages 73-98, February.
    17. Michael D. Bauer & Eric T. Swanson, 2023. "A Reassessment of Monetary Policy Surprises and High-Frequency Identification," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(1), pages 87-155.
    18. Felipe Morandé Lavín & Mauricio Tejada, 2008. "Sources of Uncertainty for Conducting Monetary Policy in Chile," Working Papers wp285, University of Chile, Department of Economics.
    19. Baxa, Jaromír & Horváth, Roman & Vašíček, Bořek, 2013. "Time-varying monetary-policy rules and financial stress: Does financial instability matter for monetary policy?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 117-138.
    20. Andreas Beyer & Vitor Gaspar & Christina Gerberding & Otmar Issing, 2013. "Opting Out of the Great Inflation: German Monetary Policy after the Breakdown of Bretton Woods," NBER Chapters, in: The Great Inflation: The Rebirth of Modern Central Banking, pages 301-346, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Amr Sadek HOSNY, 2014. "Is Monetary Policy in Egypt Backward or Forward-Looking?," Applied Econometrics and International Development, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 14(2).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Italy; Phillips Curve; inflation; ndexation; wage bargaining;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • J50 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - General
    • N10 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - General, International, or Comparative

    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:anc:wmofir:41. 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: Maurizio Mariotti (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mfancit.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.