IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedgfe/2022-28.html

Who Killed the Phillips Curve? A Murder Mystery

Author

Abstract

Is the Phillips curve dead? If so, who killed it? Conventional wisdom has it that the sound monetary policy since the 1980s not only conquered the Great Inflation, but also buried the Phillips curve itself. This paper provides an alternative explanation: labor market policies that have eroded worker bargaining power might have been the source of the demise of the Phillips curve. We develop what we call the "Kaleckian Phillips curve", the slope of which is determined by the bargaining power of trade unions. We show that a nearly 90 percent reduction in inflation volatility is possible even without any changes in monetary policy when the economy transitions from equal shares of power between workers and firms to a new balance in which firms dominate. In addition, we show that the decline of trade union power reduces the share of monopoly rents appropriated by workers, and thus helps explain the secular decline of labor share, and the rise of profit share. We provide time series and cross sectional evidence.

Suggested Citation

  • David Ratner & Jae W. Sim, 2022. "Who Killed the Phillips Curve? A Murder Mystery," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2022-028, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2022-28
    DOI: 10.17016/FEDS.2022.028
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2022028pap.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17016/FEDS.2022.028?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Garey Ramey & Wouter J. den Haan & Joel Watson, 2000. "Job Destruction and Propagation of Shocks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 482-498, June.
    2. Calvo, Guillermo A., 1983. "Staggered prices in a utility-maximizing framework," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 383-398, September.
    3. Abel, Andrew B & Blanchard, Olivier J, 1986. "The Present Value of Profits and Cyclical Movements in Investment," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(2), pages 249-273, March.
    4. Eggertsson, Gauti B. & Robbins, Jacob A. & Wold, Ella Getz, 2021. "Kaldor and Piketty’s facts: The rise of monopoly power in the United States," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(S), pages 19-38.
    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. Juan C. Córdoba & Anni T. Isojärvi & Haoran Li, 2023. "Endogenous Bargaining Power and Declining Labor Compensation Share," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2023-030, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    2. Jordà, Òscar & Nechio, Fernanda, 2023. "Inflation and wage growth since the pandemic," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    3. Fontanari, Claudia & Levrero, Enrico Sergio & Romaniello, Davide, 2024. "A composite index for workers’ bargaining power and the inflation rate in the United States, 1960–2018," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 682-698.
    4. Mark Setterfield, 2023. "Inflation and distribution during the post-COVID recovery: a Kaleckian approach," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(4), pages 587-611, October.
    5. Agnesi, Alessandro & Russo, Alberto, 2025. "Redistribution through inflation: A multi-sector approach to income dynamics," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 69-81.
    6. Yılmaz, Ensar & Bulut, Necip, 2025. "Inflation dynamics: Profits, wages and import prices," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 49(3).
    7. Brzozowski, Michał & Siwińska-Gorzelak, Joanna, 2024. "Did robots make wages less responsive to unemployment?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    8. Uxó, Jorge & Febrero, Eladio & Álvarez, Ignacio, 2025. "Prices, markups and wages: inflation and its distributive consequences in Spain, 2021-2023," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 179-192.
    9. Wildauer, Rafael & Kohler, Karsten & Aboobaker, Adam & Guschanski, Alexander, 2023. "Energy price shocks, conflict inflation, and income distribution in a three-sector model," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(PB).
    10. Stamegna, Marco, 2022. "Induced innovation, the distributive cycle, and the changing pattern of labour productivity cyclicality: a SVAR analysis for the US economy," MPRA Paper 113855, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Rolim, Lilian & Carvalho, Laura & Lang, Dany, 2024. "Monetary policy rules and the inequality-augmented Phillips curve," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 139(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. Antonella Trigari, 2006. "The Role of Search Frictions and Bargaining for Inflation Dynamics," Working Papers 304, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    2. Julen Esteban-Pretel & Elisa Faraglia, 2005. "Monetary Shocks in a Model with Loss of Skills," 2005 Meeting Papers 328, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    3. Arce, Óscar & Nuño, Galo & Thaler, Dominik & Thomas, Carlos, 2020. "A large central bank balance sheet? Floor vs corridor systems in a New Keynesian environment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 350-367.
    4. Baas, Timo & Belke, Ansgar, 2014. "Labor Market Reforms and Current Account Imbalances - Beggar-thy-Neighbor Policies in a Currency Union?," Ruhr Economic Papers 505, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    5. Wilko Letterie & Øivind A. Nilsen, 2022. "Pricing Behaviour and Menu Costs in Multi‐product Firms," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(355), pages 746-769, July.
    6. Cairó, Isabel & Sim, Jae, 2024. "Market power, inequality, and financial instability," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    7. Tang, Jenn-Hong, 2010. "Optimal monetary policy in a new Keynesian model with job search," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 330-353, March.
    8. Mikael Carlsson & Andreas Westermark, 2022. "Endogenous Separations, Wage Rigidities, and Unemployment Volatility," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 332-354, January.
    9. Sterk, Vincent & Tenreyro, Silvana, 2018. "The transmission of monetary policy through redistributions and durable purchases," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 124-137.
    10. Letterie, Wilko & Nilsen, Øivind A., 2016. "Price Changes - Stickiness and Internal Coordination in Multiproduct Firms," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 21/2016, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    11. Paweł Kopiec, 2022. "A Theory of The Procyclical Effectiveness of Forward Guidance," KAE Working Papers 2022-081, Warsaw School of Economics, Collegium of Economic Analysis.
    12. Diwambuena, Josué & Fonseca, Raquel & Schubert, Stefan, 2025. "Labor market institutions, productivity, and the business cycle: An application to Italy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    13. Kim, Cholwoo, 2025. "The role of wage rigidity with matching frictions on the international co-movement of employment," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1538, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    14. Baas, Timo & Belke, Ansgar, 2017. "Oil price shocks, monetary policy and current account imbalances within a currency union," GLO Discussion Paper Series 160, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    15. Zhang, Yahong, 2018. "Financial factors and labor market fluctuations," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 24-44.
    16. Buffie, Edward F., 2014. "The Taylor principle fights back, Part II," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 30-49.
    17. Julen Esteban-Pretel & Elisa Faraglia, 2010. "Monetary Shocks in a Model with Skill Loss," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(7), pages 1235-1265, October.
    18. Jacquinot, Pascal & Lozej, Matija & Pisani, Massimiliano, 2022. "Macroeconomic effects of tariffs shocks: The role of the effective lower bound and the labour market," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    19. Proaño, Christian R., 2012. "Gradual wage-price adjustments, labor market frictions and monetary policy rules," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 220-235.
    20. Raquel Fonseca & Lise Patureau & Thepthida Sopraseuth, 2009. "Divergence in Labor Market Institutions and International Business Cycles," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 95-96, pages 279-314.

    More about this item

    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
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy

    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:fedgfe:2022-28. 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.