IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/imf/imfwpa/2009-034.html

The Inflation-Unemployment Trade-off at Low Inflation

Author

Listed:
  • Mr. Luca A Ricci
  • Pierpaolo Benigno

Abstract

Wage setters take into account the future consequences of their current wage choices in the presence of downward nominal wage rigidities. Several interesting implications arise. First, a closed-form solution for a long-run Phillips curve relates average unemployment to average wage inflation; the curve is virtually vertical for high inflation rates but becomes flatter as inflation declines. Second, macroeconomic volatility shifts the Phillips curve outward, implying that stabilization policies can play an important role in shaping the trade-off. Third, nominal wages tend to be endogenously rigid also upward, at low inflation. Fourth, when inflation decreases, volatility of unemployment increases whereas the volatility of inflation decreases: this implies a long-run trade-off also between the volatility of unemployment and that of wage inflation.

Suggested Citation

  • Mr. Luca A Ricci & Pierpaolo Benigno, 2009. "The Inflation-Unemployment Trade-off at Low Inflation," IMF Working Papers 2009/034, International Monetary Fund.
    • Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2009/034
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=22360
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barro, Robert J & Gordon, David B, 1983. "A Positive Theory of Monetary Policy in a Natural Rate Model," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(4), pages 589-610, August.
    2. Aubhik Khan & Robert G. King & Alexander L. Wolman, 2003. "Optimal Monetary Policy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(4), pages 825-860.
    3. Wyplosz, Charles, 2001. "Do We Know How Low Inflation Should Be?," CEPR Discussion Papers 2722, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Christian Broda & David E. Weinstein, 2007. "Defining Price Stability in Japan: A View from America," Monetary and Economic Studies, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, vol. 25(S1), pages 169-206, December.
    5. Andrew B. Abel & Janice C. Eberly, 1996. "Optimal Investment with Costly Reversibility," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 63(4), pages 581-593.
    6. Mark Gertler & Jordi Gali & Richard Clarida, 1999. "The Science of Monetary Policy: A New Keynesian Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1661-1707, December.
    7. Kim, Jinill & Ruge-Murcia, Francisco J., 2009. "How much inflation is necessary to grease the wheels?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 365-377, April.
    8. Lebow David E & Saks Raven E & Wilson Beth Anne, 2003. "Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity: Evidence from the Employment Cost Index," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 1-30, October.
    9. Bullard, James & Keating, John W., 1995. "The long-run relationship between inflation and output in postwar economies," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 477-496, December.
    10. Kimura, Takeshi & Ueda, Kazuo, 2001. "Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 50-67, March.
    11. Eldar Shafir & Peter Diamond & Amos Tversky, 1997. "Money Illusion," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 341-374.
    12. Erica Groshen & Mark Schweitzer, 1999. "Identifying Inflation's Grease and Sand Effects in the Labor Market," NBER Chapters, in: The Costs and Benefits of Price Stability, pages 273-314, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Fehr, Ernst & Goette, Lorenz, 2005. "Robustness and real consequences of nominal wage rigidity," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(4), pages 779-804, May.
    14. Ball, Laurence & Mankiw, N Gregory, 1994. "Asymmetric Price Adjustment and Economic Fluctuations," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(423), pages 247-261, March.
    15. Luis J. Álvarez & Emmanuel Dhyne & Marco Hoeberichts & Claudia Kwapil & Hervé Le Bihan & Patrick Lünnemann & Fernando Martins & Roberto Sabbatini & Harald Stahl & Philip Vermeulen & Jouko Vilmunen, 2006. "Sticky Prices in the Euro Area: A Summary of New Micro-Evidence," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(2-3), pages 575-584, 04-05.
    16. Sam Peltzman, 2000. "Prices Rise Faster than They Fall," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(3), pages 466-502, June.
    17. Mankiw, N Gregory, 2001. "The Inexorable and Mysterious Tradeoff between Inflation and Unemployment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(471), pages 45-61, May.
    18. Mikhail Golosov & Robert E. Lucas Jr., 2007. "Menu Costs and Phillips Curves," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(2), pages 171-199.
    19. William T. Dickens & Lorenz Goette & Erica L. Groshen & Steinar Holden & Julian Messina & Mark E. Schweitzer & Jarkko Turunen & Melanie E. Ward, 2007. "How Wages Change: Micro Evidence from the International Wage Flexibility Project," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 195-214, Spring.
    20. Dumas, Bernard, 1991. "Super contact and related optimality conditions," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 675-685, October.
    21. David Card & Dean Hyslop, 1997. "Does Inflation "Grease the Wheels of the Labor Market"?," NBER Chapters, in: Reducing Inflation: Motivation and Strategy, pages 71-122, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Guiseppe Bertola & Ricardo J. Caballero, 1994. "Irreversibility and Aggregate Investment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(2), pages 223-246.
    23. George A. Akerlof & William R. Dickens & George L. Perry, 1996. "The Macroeconomics of Low Inflation," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 27(1), pages 1-76.
    24. Schmitt-Grohe, Stephanie & Uribe, Martin, 2004. "Optimal fiscal and monetary policy under sticky prices," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 114(2), pages 198-230, February.
    25. Tobin, James, 1972. "Inflation and Unemployment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(1), pages 1-18, March.
    26. Robert E. Lucas Jr., 2003. "Macroeconomic Priorities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 1-14, March.
    27. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1973. "Some International Evidence on Output-Inflation Tradeoffs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(3), pages 326-334, June.
    28. Timothy Cogley & Thomas J. Sargent, 2005. "The conquest of US inflation: Learning and robustness to model uncertainty," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 8(2), pages 528-563, April.
    29. Stephan Fahr & Frank Smets, 2010. "Downward Wage Rigidities and Optimal Monetary Policy in a Monetary Union," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 112(4), pages 812-840, December.
    30. Loboguerrero Ana Maria & Panizza Ugo, 2006. "Does Inflation Grease the Wheels of the Labor Market?," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 6(1), pages 1-28, October.
    31. Agell, Jonas & Bennmarker, Helge, 2002. "Wage policy and endogenous wage rigidity: a representative view from the inside," Working Paper Series 2002:12, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    32. A. W. Phillips, 1958. "The Relation Between Unemployment and the Rate of Change of Money Wage Rates in the United Kingdom, 1861–1957," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 25(100), pages 283-299, November.
    33. Lars E. O. Svensson, 1999. "How should monetary policy be conducted in an era of price stability?," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 195-259.
    34. Holden, Steinar, 1997. "Wage Bargaining, Holdout, and Inflation," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 49(2), pages 235-255, April.
    35. Frederic S. Mishkin, 2008. "Does Stabilizing Inflation Contribute To Stabilizing Economic Activity?," NBER Working Papers 13970, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    36. Peter Gottschalk, 2005. "Downward Nominal-Wage Flexibility: Real or Measurement Error?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(3), pages 556-568, August.
    37. Pindyck, Robert S, 1988. "Irreversible Investment, Capacity Choice, and the Value of the Firm," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(5), pages 969-985, December.
    38. Olivier Blanchard, 2009. "The State of Macro," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 209-228, May.
    39. Mark Gertler & Jordi Gali & Richard Clarida, 1999. "The Science of Monetary Policy: A New Keynesian Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1661-1707, December.
    40. Fagan, Gabriel & Messina, Julián, 2009. "Downward wage rigidity and optimal steady-state inflation," Working Paper Series 1048, European Central Bank.
    41. Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2006. "Why Inflation Rose and Fell: Policy-Makers' Beliefs and U. S. Postwar Stabilization Policy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(3), pages 867-901.
    42. Torben M. Andersen, 2001. "Can Inflation Be Too Low?," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(4), pages 591-602, November.
    43. Marvin Goodfriend & Robert G. King, 1997. "The New Neoclassical Synthesis and the Role of Monetary Policy," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997, Volume 12, pages 231-296, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    44. Dixit, Avinash, 1991. "A simplified treatment of the theory of optimal regulation of Brownian motion," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 657-673, October.
    45. George A. Akerlof, 2007. "The Missing Motivation in Macroeconomics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 5-36, March.
    46. Jonas Agell & Per Lundborg, 2003. "Survey Evidence on Wage Rigidity and Unemployment: Sweden in the 1990s," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 105(1), pages 15-30, March.
    47. Edmund S. Phelps, 1968. "Money-Wage Dynamics and Labor-Market Equilibrium," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 76(4), pages 678-678.
    48. Bertola, Giuseppe, 1998. "Irreversible investment," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 3-37, March.
    49. Christoph Knoppik & Thomas Beissinger, 2003. "How Rigid are Nominal Wages? Evidence and Implications for Germany," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 105(4), pages 619-641, December.
    50. repec:bla:econom:v:71:y:2004:i:281:p:183-208 is not listed on IDEAS
    51. MacLeod, W Bentley & Malcomson, James M, 1993. "Investments, Holdup, and the Form of Market Contracts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(4), pages 811-837, September.
    52. Thomas J. Sargent, 2008. "Evolution and Intelligent Design," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 5-37, March.
    53. Milton Friedman, 1976. "Inflation and Unemployment," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 1976-1, Nobel Prize Committee.
    54. King, Robert G. & Watson, Mark W., 1994. "The post-war U.S. phillips curve: a revisionist econometric history," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 157-219, December.
    55. Erceg, Christopher J. & Henderson, Dale W. & Levin, Andrew T., 2000. "Optimal monetary policy with staggered wage and price contracts," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 281-313, October.
    56. Frank Smets & Raf Wouters, 2003. "An Estimated Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Model of the Euro Area," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1123-1175, September.
    57. Alexander L. Wolman, 2001. "A primer on optimal monetary policy with staggered price-setting," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue Fall, pages 27-52.
    58. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1977. "Rules Rather Than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(3), pages 473-491, June.
    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. Kim, Jinill & Ruge-Murcia, Francisco J., 2011. "Monetary policy when wages are downwardly rigid: Friedman meets Tobin," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 2064-2077.
    2. Pierpaolo Benigno & Luca Antonio Ricci, 2011. "The Inflation-Output Trade-Off with Downward Wage Rigidities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1436-1466, June.
    3. Kim, Jinill & Ruge-Murcia, Francisco J., 2009. "How much inflation is necessary to grease the wheels?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 365-377, April.
    4. Fagan, Gabriel & Messina, Julián, 2009. "Downward wage rigidity and optimal steady-state inflation," Working Paper Series 1048, European Central Bank.
    5. Juan David Prada Sarmiento & Luis Eduardo Rojas Due�as, 2009. "La elasticidad de Frisch y la transmisi�n de la pol�tica monetaria en Colombia," Borradores de Economia 5404, Banco de la Republica.
    6. Di Bartolomeo, Giovanni & Tirelli, Patrizio & Acocella, Nicola, 2014. "Trend inflation, the labor market wedge, and the non-vertical Phillips curve," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 1022-1035.
    7. Di Bartolomeo, Giovanni & Tirelli, Patrizio & Acocella, Nicola, 2012. "Inflation targets and endogenous wage markups in a New Keynesian model," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 391-403.
    8. Giovanni Di Bartolomeo & Patrizio Tirelli & Nicola Acocella, 2010. "Trend inflation, endogenous mark-ups and the non-vertical Phillips curve," Working Papers 186, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised May 2010.
    9. Juan David Prada Sarmiento & Luis Eduardo Rojas Dueñas, 2009. "La elasticidad de Frisch y la transmisión de la política monetaria en Colombia," Borradores de Economia 555, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    10. Etienne Farvaque & Alexander Mihailov, 2008. "Intergenerational Transmission of Inflation Aversion: Theory and Evidence," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2008-71, Department of Economics, University of Reading.

    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. Pierpaolo Benigno & Luca Antonio Ricci, 2011. "The Inflation-Output Trade-Off with Downward Wage Rigidities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1436-1466, June.
    2. Steinar Holden, 2005. "Wage Formation under Low Inflation," Springer Books, in: Hannu Piekkola & Kenneth Snellman (ed.), Collective Bargaining and Wage Formation, pages 39-57, Springer.
    3. Holden Steinar & Wulfsberg Fredrik, 2008. "Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity in the OECD," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-50, April.
    4. Steinar Holden & Fredrik Wulfsberg, 2014. "Wage Rigidity, Inflation, and Institutions," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 116(2), pages 539-569, April.
    5. Ahrens, Steffen & Pirschel, Inske & Snower, Dennis J., 2014. "A theory of wage adjustment under loss aversion," Kiel Working Papers 1977, Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
    6. Holden, Steinar & Wulfsberg, Fredrik, 2004. "Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity in Europe," Memorandum 08/2004, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    7. Mary C. Daly & Bart Hobijn, 2014. "Downward Nominal Wage Rigidities Bend the Phillips Curve," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 46(S2), pages 51-93, October.
    8. Driscoll, John C. & Holden, Steinar, 2014. "Behavioral economics and macroeconomic models," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 133-147.
    9. Stefano, Fasani, 2016. "Long-run Unemployment and Macroeconomic Volatility," Working Papers 352, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised 18 Oct 2016.
    10. Thorvardur Tjörvi Ólafsson, 2006. "The New Keynesian Phillips Curve: In Search of Improvements and Adaptation to the Open Economy," Economics wp31_tjorvi, Department of Economics, Central bank of Iceland.
    11. Barno Blaes, 2008. "Ausmaß und reale Konsequenzen nach unten starrer Nominallöhne," Working Papers 048, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    12. Steinar Holden, 2012. "Implications of insights from behavioral economics for macroeconomic models," IMK Working Paper 99-2012, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    13. Kim, Jinill & Ruge-Murcia, Francisco J., 2011. "Monetary policy when wages are downwardly rigid: Friedman meets Tobin," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 2064-2077.
    14. Steinar Holden, 2002. "The Costs of Price Stability - Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity in Europe," NBER Working Papers 8865, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Akhand Akhtar Hossain, 2009. "Central Banking and Monetary Policy in the Asia-Pacific," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12777.
    16. Frederic S. Mishkin, 2007. "Will monetary policy become more of a science?," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2007-44, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    17. Ahrens, Steffen & Snower, Dennis J., 2014. "Envy, guilt, and the Phillips curve," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 69-84.
    18. Jeremi Montornes & Jacques-Bernard Sauner-Leroy, 2015. "Wage-setting Behavior in France: Additional Evidence from an Ad-hoc Survey," Journal of Banking and Financial Economics, University of Warsaw, Faculty of Management, vol. 1(3), pages 5-23, May.
    19. William T. Dickens & Lorenz Goette & Erica L. Groshen & Steinar Holden & Julian Messina & Mark E. Schweitzer & Jarkko Turunen & Melanie Ward, 2006. "The interaction of labor markets and inflation: analysis of micro data from the International Wage Flexibility Project," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    20. Frederic S. Mishkin, 2011. "Monetary Policy Strategy: Lessons from the Crisis," NBER Working Papers 16755, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • E0 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • E30 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)

    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:imf:imfwpa:2009/034. 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: Akshay Modi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imfffus.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.