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The Heterogeneous Cost of Wage Rigidity: Evidence and Theory

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  • Faia, Ester
  • Pezone, Vincenzo

Abstract

Using a unique confidential contract level dataset merged with firm-level asset price data, we find robust evidence that firms' stock market valuations and employment levels respond more to monetary policy announcements the higher the degree of wage rigidity. Data on the renegotiations of collective bargaining agreements allow us to construct an exogenous and accurate measure of wage rigidity. The amplification induced by wage rigidity is stronger for firms with high labor intensity and low profitability. There are clear distributional consequences of monetary policy. We rationalize the evidence through a model in which firms in different sectors feature different degrees of wage rigidity due to staggered renegotiations vis-a-vis unions.

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  • Faia, Ester & Pezone, Vincenzo, 2020. "The Heterogeneous Cost of Wage Rigidity: Evidence and Theory," SAFE Working Paper Series 242, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, revised 2020.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:safewp:242
    DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.3326397
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    2. Bernardo Fanfani, 2019. "The Employment Effects of Collective Bargaining," Working papers 064, Department of Economics, Social Studies, Applied Mathematics and Statistics (Dipartimento di Scienze Economico-Sociali e Matematico-Statistiche), University of Torino.
    3. Susanto Basu & Giacomo Candian & Ryan Chahrour & Rosen Valchev, 2021. "Risky Business Cycles," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 1029, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 17 Sep 2024.
    4. Adamopoulou, Effrosyni & Manaresi, Francesco & Rachedi, Omar & Yurdagul, Emircan, 2021. "Minimum Wages and Insurance within the Firm," IZA Discussion Papers 14943, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Effrosyni Adamopoulou & Ernesto Villanueva, 2020. "Wage determination and the bite of collective contracts in Italy and Spain: evidence from the metal working industry," Working Papers 2036, Banco de España.
    6. Effrosnyi Adamopoulou & Luis Diez-Catalan & Ernesto Villanueva, "undated". "Staggered Contracts and Unemployment During Recessions," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2022_379, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    7. 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).
    8. Javier Bianchi & Jorge Mondragon, 2022. "Monetary Independence and Rollover Crises," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 137(1), pages 435-491.
    9. Moritz Pfeifer & Gunther Schnabl, 2024. "Monetary Policy, Divergence, and the Euro," CESifo Working Paper Series 11442, CESifo.
    10. Francesco Devicienti & Bernardo Fanfani, 2025. "Firms' margins of adjustment to wage growth: the case of Italian collective bargaining," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 92(365), pages 107-149, January.
    11. Arespa, Marta, 2024. "The exchange rate regime, a determinant of the degree of risk sharing between profits and wages," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 1910-1932.
    12. Carreño, José Gabo & Uras, Burak, 2024. "Macro welfare effects of flexible labor contracts," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    13. Adamopoulou, Effrosyni & Villanueva, Ernesto, 2022. "Wage determination and the bite of collective contracts in Italy and Spain," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    14. Chung, Min-Su & Lim, Hyunjoon, 2024. "Transmission of external shocks and regional heterogeneity: Evidence from Korean province-level data," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    heterogeneous monetary policy response; distributional consequences of monetary policy; employer-employee level dataset; monetary policy surprise shocks; heterogeneous wage rigidity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • J52 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Dispute Resolution: Strikes, Arbitration, and Mediation

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