IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedbcq/97617.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is Post-pandemic Wage Growth Fueling Inflation?

Author

Abstract

Inflation in the United States surged after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching levels not seen in four decades. Supply chain disruptions, extraordinary fiscal support for households, labor market shortages, and lockdowns and other public health measures contributed to this surge, which first manifested as goods price inflation. Nominal wage growth also increased significantly and has remained at levels above pre-pandemic averages, raising concerns that it could trigger a wage-price spiral and extend the current episode of high inflation. Indeed, the increase in wage growth has coincided with an increase in service inflation, which is known to be more persistent than goods inflation and to account for a majority of overall inflation.

Suggested Citation

  • Philippe Andrade & Falk Bräuning & José Fillat & Gustavo Joaquim, 2024. "Is Post-pandemic Wage Growth Fueling Inflation?," Current Policy Perspectives 2024-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedbcq:97617
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bostonfed.org/publications/current-policy-perspectives/2024/is-post-pandemic-wage-growth-fueling-inflation
    File Function: Summary
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.bostonfed.org/-/media/Documents/Workingpapers/PDF/2024/cpp20240116.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kilian,Lutz & Lütkepohl,Helmut, 2018. "Structural Vector Autoregressive Analysis," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107196575.
    2. José Luis Montiel Olea & Mikkel Plagborg‐Møller, 2021. "Local Projection Inference Is Simpler and More Robust Than You Think," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(4), pages 1789-1823, July.
    3. Adam Hale Shapiro, 2023. "How Much Do Labor Costs Drive Inflation?," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, vol. 2023(13), pages 1-6, May.
    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. Ruhollah Eskandari & Morteza Zamanian, 2023. "Heterogeneous responses to corporate marginal tax rates: Evidence from small and large firms," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(7), pages 1018-1047, November.
    2. Christis Katsouris, 2023. "Structural Analysis of Vector Autoregressive Models," Papers 2312.06402, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2024.
    3. Ke-Li Xu, 2023. "Local Projection Based Inference under General Conditions," CAEPR Working Papers 2023-001 Classification-C, Center for Applied Economics and Policy Research, Department of Economics, Indiana University Bloomington.
    4. Loipersberger, Florian & Matschke, Johannes, 2022. "Financial cycles and domestic policy choices," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    5. Philipp Roderweis & Jamel Saadaoui & Francisco Serranito, 2023. "The Unintended Consequences of ECB’s Asset Purchases. How Excess Reserves Shape Bank Lending," Working Papers of BETA 2023-34, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    6. Bruns, Martin & Lütkepohl, Helmut, 2022. "Comparison of local projection estimators for proxy vector autoregressions," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    7. Robert Adamek & Stephan Smeekes & Ines Wilms, 2022. "Local Projection Inference in High Dimensions," Papers 2209.03218, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2024.
    8. Sarah Arndt & Zeno Enders, 2023. "The Transmission of Supply Shocks in Different Inflation Regimes," CESifo Working Paper Series 10839, CESifo.
    9. Miranda-Agrippino, Silvia & Ricco, Giovanni, 2018. "Bayesian Vector Autoregressions," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1159, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    10. Mohammed, Mikidadu & Barrales-Ruiz, Jose A., 2020. "Pandemics and Oil Shocks," EconStor Preprints 222268, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    11. Cezar, Rafael & Monnet, Eric, 2023. "Capital controls and foreign reserves against external shocks: Combined or alone?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    12. Verbrugge, Randal & Zaman, Saeed, 2023. "The hard road to a soft landing: Evidence from a (modestly) nonlinear structural model," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    13. Gahn, Santiago José, 2021. "On the adjustment of capacity utilisation to aggregate demand: Revisiting an old Sraffian critique to the Neo-Kaleckian model," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 325-360.
    14. Andrea Bastianin & Alessandro Lanza & Matteo Manera, 2018. "Economic impacts of El Niño southern oscillation: evidence from the Colombian coffee market," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 49(5), pages 623-633, September.
    15. Blazsek, Szabolcs & Escribano, Álvaro & Licht, Adrian, 2018. "Seasonal quasi-vector autoregressive models for macroeconomic data," UC3M Working papers. Economics 26316, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    16. Alain Guay, 2020. "Identification of Structural Vector Autoregressions Through Higher Unconditional Moments," Working Papers 20-19, Chair in macroeconomics and forecasting, University of Quebec in Montreal's School of Management.
    17. Herwartz, Helmut & Lange, Alexander & Maxand, Simone, 2019. "Statistical identification in SVARs - Monte Carlo experiments and a comparative assessment of the role of economic uncertainties for the US business cycle," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 375, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    18. Taylor, Alan M. & Cloyne, James & Jordà , Òscar, 2023. "State-Dependent Local Projections: Understanding Impulse Response Heterogeneity," CEPR Discussion Papers 17903, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Matteo Deleidi & Claudia Fontanari & Santiago José Gahn, 2023. "Autonomous demand and technical change: exploring the Kaldor–Verdoorn law on a global level," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 40(1), pages 57-80, April.
    20. François-Éric Racicot & Raymond Théoret, 2022. "Tracking market and non-traditional sources of risks in procyclical and countercyclical hedge fund strategies under extreme scenarios: a nonlinear VAR approach," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 1-56, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    COVID-19; inflation; wage growth;
    All these keywords.

    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
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation

    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:fip:fedbcq:97617. 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: Catherine Spozio (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbbous.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.