IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedgfe/1998-21.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Nominal wage rigidity and real wage cyclicality

Author

Abstract

We discuss the ability of standard estimates of the correlation of wages and employment to measure the relative strength of aggregate demand and supply shocks, given that the choice of time period, deflator, and explanatory variables inherently biases the estimated cyclical coefficients toward identifying labor supply or demand. We determine that a closer look at the standard wage/labor correlation shows that it can neither provide information on the relative strength of supply and demand shocks, nor give an indication of the response of wages to aggregate demand shocks. Following this, we test the predictions of a neo-Keynesian model for the correlation of employment and wages using restrictions generated by the model to identify movements along or shifts in labor demand. Our results are consistent with the theory of nominal wage rigidity and we find no reason to reject the neo-Keynesian model based on the correlation of wages and employment.

Suggested Citation

  • Marcello Estevao & Beth Anne Wilson, 1998. "Nominal wage rigidity and real wage cyclicality," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 1998-21, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:1998-21
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/1998/199821/199821abs.html
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/1998/199821/199821pap.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christiano, Lawrence J & Eichenbaum, Martin & Evans, Charles, 1996. "The Effects of Monetary Policy Shocks: Evidence from the Flow of Funds," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(1), pages 16-34, February.
    2. B. Douglas Bernheim & John Karl Scholz, 1993. "Private Saving and Public Policy," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 7, pages 73-110, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Katharine G. Abraham & John C. Haltiwanger, 1995. "Real Wages and the Business Cycle," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(3), pages 1215-1264, September.
    4. Julio J. Rotemberg & Michael Woodford, 1991. "Markups and the Business Cycle," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1991, Volume 6, pages 63-140, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Eric J. Bartelsman & Wayne Gray, 1996. "The NBER Manufacturing Productivity Database," NBER Technical Working Papers 0205, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Wooldridge, Jeffrey M., 1990. "A note on the Lagrange multiplier and F-statistics for two stage least squares regressions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 151-155, October.
    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. Eric T. Swanson, 1999. "Measuring the cyclicality of real wages: how important is aggregation across industries?," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 1999-52, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    2. Martins, Pedro & Snell, Andy & Thomas, Jonathan, 2010. "Minu, Startu and all that:- Pitfalls in estimating the sensitivity of a worker’s wage to aggregate unemployment," SIRE Discussion Papers 2010-109, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).

    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. Federico Di Pace & Matthias Hertweck, 2019. "Labor Market Frictions, Monetary Policy, and Durable Goods," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 32, pages 274-304, April.
    2. Agenor, Pierre-Richard & McDermott, C John & Prasad, Eswar S, 2000. "Macroeconomic Fluctuations in Developing Countries: Some Stylized Facts," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 14(2), pages 251-285, May.
    3. Pereira, João & Ramos, Raul & Martins, Pedro S., 2024. "Wage cyclicality and labour market institutions," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1469, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    4. Eric T. Swanson, 1999. "Measuring the cyclicality of real wages: how important is aggregation across industries?," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 1999-52, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    5. Ahmad. Afrasiabi & Tomas Nonnenmacher, 2005. "High and low frequency variations and the cyclical behaviour of real wages," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(5), pages 571-579.
    6. Stirati, Antonella, 2014. "Real wages in the business cycle: an unresolved conflict between theory and facts in mainstream macroeconomics," MPRA Paper 53743, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin S. Eichenbaum & Mathias Trabandt, 2018. "On DSGE Models," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 32(3), pages 113-140, Summer.
    8. 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).
    9. Robert J. Barro & Silvana Tenreyro, 2006. "Closed and Open Economy Models of Business Cycles with Marked Up and Sticky Prices," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(511), pages 434-456, April.
    10. Martyna Marczak & Thomas Beissinger, 2013. "Real wages and the business cycle in Germany," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 44(2), pages 469-490, April.
    11. Charles A. Fleischman, 1999. "The causes of business cycles and the cyclicality of real wages," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 1999-53, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    12. Petrella, Ivan & Santoro, Emiliano, 2012. "Inflation dynamics and real marginal costs: New evidence from U.S. manufacturing industries," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 779-794.
    13. Bils, Mark & Chang, Yongsung, 2000. "Understanding how price responds to costs and production," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 33-77, June.
    14. Hart, Robert A. & Malley, James R., 2000. "Marginal cost and price over the business cycle: comparative evidence from Japan and the United States," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 547-569, September.
    15. Robert A. Hart & J Malley (University of Glasgow), 1996. "Labor Productivity and the Cycle," Working Papers 9613, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    16. Marczak, Martyna & Gómez, Víctor, 2015. "Cyclicality of real wages in the USA and Germany: New insights from wavelet analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 40-52.
    17. Eduardo Loyo, 2001. "Imaginary money against sticky relative prices," Textos para discussão 448, Department of Economics PUC-Rio (Brazil).
    18. Antonella Stirati, 2016. "Real wages in the business cycle and the theory of income distribution: an unresolved conflict between theory and facts in mainstream macroeconomics," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 40(2), pages 639-661.
    19. Daniel Ryan, 2000. "Fluctuations in productivity growth rates and input utilization in U.S. manufacturing," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 28(2), pages 150-163, June.
    20. Ellen R. McGrattan, 2001. "Predicting the effects of Federal Reserve policy in a sticky price model: an analytical approach," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Jun.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Wages;

    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:fedgfe:1998-21. 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: Ryan Wolfslayer ; Keisha Fournillier (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbgvus.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.