IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/2888.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Real Wages Over The Business Cycle

Author

Listed:
  • Robert B. Barsky
  • Gary Solon

Abstract

This paper is an examination of cyclical real wage behavior in the United States since World War II. Like most previous aggregate studies. ours finds little cyclicalitv in aggregate industry real wage data. On the other hand, our analysis of longitudinal microdata from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics reveals substantial procyclicality. We find that this procyclicality is obscured in industry average wage statistics, and to a lesser extent in economywide averages, because those statistics are constructed in a way that gives greater weight to low-wage workers during expansions. The almost complete absence of evidence for countercyclical real wages suggests that movements along labor demand curves have not played a dominant role in cyclical employment fluctuations over the last 40 years. Instead, the procyclicality of real wages indicates that cyclical employment fluctuations have been generated mainly by shifts in labor demand. The sources of these shifts and of the positive slope of the effective labor supply curve, however, remain open to alternative interpretations.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert B. Barsky & Gary Solon, 1989. "Real Wages Over The Business Cycle," NBER Working Papers 2888, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:2888
    Note: EFG
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w2888.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1970. "Capacity, Overtime, and Empirical Production Functions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 60(2), pages 23-27, May.
    2. Abowd, John M & Card, David, 1987. "Intertemporal Labor Supply and Long-term Employment Contracts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(1), pages 50-68, March.
    3. Ashenfelter, Orley, 1984. "Macroeconomic analyses and microeconomic analyses of labor supply," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 117-156, January.
    4. Keane, Michael & Moffitt, Robert & Runkle, David, 1988. "Real Wages over the Business Cycle: Estimating the Impact of Heterogeneity with Micro Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(6), pages 1232-1266, December.
    5. Neftci, Salih N, 1978. "A Time-Series Analysis of the Real Wages-Employment Relationship," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(2), pages 281-291, April.
    6. Barsky, Robert B & Miron, Jeffrey A, 1989. "The Seasonal Cycle and the Business Cycle," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(3), pages 503-534, June.
    7. Rotemberg, Julio J & Saloner, Garth, 1986. "A Supergame-Theoretic Model of Price Wars during Booms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(3), pages 390-407, June.
    8. Leamer, Edward E, 1981. "Is It a Demand Curve, or Is It a Supply Curve? Partial Identification through Inequality Constraints," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 63(3), pages 319-327, August.
    9. Arthur M. Okun, 1973. "Upward Mobility in a High-Pressure Economy," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 4(1), pages 207-262.
    10. Geary, Patrick T & Kennan, John, 1982. "The Employment-Real Wage Relationship: An International Study," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(4), pages 854-871, August.
    11. Domowitz, Ian & Hubbard, R Glenn & Petersen, Bruce C, 1988. "Market Structure and Cyclical Fluctuations in U.S. Manufacturing," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 70(1), pages 55-66, February.
    12. Kydland, Finn E., 1984. "Labor-force heterogeneity and the business cycle," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 173-208, January.
    13. Robert J. Barro & Robert G. King, 1984. "Time-Separable Preferences and Intertemporal-Substitution Models of Business Cycles," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 99(4), pages 817-839.
    14. Kniesner, Thomas J & Goldsmith, Arthur H, 1987. "A Survey of Alternative Models of the Aggregate U.S. Labor Market," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 25(3), pages 1241-1280, September.
    15. Sargent, Thomas J, 1978. "Estimation of Dynamic Labor Demand Schedules under Rational Expectations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(6), pages 1009-1044, December.
    16. Card, David, 1990. "Unexpected Inflation, Real Wages, and Employment Determination in Union Contracts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(4), pages 669-688, September.
    17. Richard B. Freeman & James L. Medoff, 1979. "New Estimates of Private Sector Unionism in the United States," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 32(2), pages 143-174, January.
    18. John C. Ham, 1986. "Testing whether Unemployment Represents Intertemporal Labour Supply Behaviour," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 53(4), pages 559-578.
    19. Kim B. Clark & Lawrence H. Summers, 1981. "Demographic Differences in Cyclical Employment Variation," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 16(1), pages 61-79.
    20. Altonji, Joseph G, 1986. "Intertemporal Substitution in Labor Supply: Evidence from Micro Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(3), pages 176-215, June.
    21. Brown, James N & Ashenfelter, Orley, 1986. "Testing the Efficiency of Employment Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(3), pages 40-87, June.
    22. MaCurdy, Thomas E, 1981. "An Empirical Model of Labor Supply in a Life-Cycle Setting," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(6), pages 1059-1085, December.
    23. Kennan, John, 1988. "An Econometric Analysis of Fluctuations in Aggregate Labor Supply and Demand," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(2), pages 317-333, March.
    24. Edward C. Prescott, 1986. "Response to a skeptic," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 10(Fall), pages 28-33.
    25. Raisian, John, 1979. "Cyclic Patterns in Weeks and Wages," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 17(4), pages 475-495, October.
    26. Oliver D. Hart, 1983. "Optimal Labour Contracts under Asymmetric Information: An Introduction," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 50(1), pages 3-35.
    27. Robert E. Hall, 1974. "The Process of Inflation in the Labor Market," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 5(2), pages 343-410.
    28. Chirinko, Robert S, 1980. "The Real Wage Rate over the Business Cycle," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 62(3), pages 459-461, August.
    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. Gary Solon & Robert Barsky & Jonathan A. Parker, 1994. "Measuring the Cyclicality of Real Wages: How Important is Composition Bias?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(1), pages 1-25.
    2. Pedro Portugal & Anabela Carneiro, 2004. "Workers' Flows and Real Wage Cyclicality," Working Papers w200409, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    3. Dominique Tremblay, 2002. "Salaire réel, chocs technologiques et fluctuations économiques," Staff Working Papers 02-42, Bank of Canada.
    4. Altug, Sumru & Miller, Robert A, 1990. "Household Choices in Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(3), pages 543-570, May.
    5. Blank, Rebecca M, 1990. "Why Are Wages Cyclical in the 1970s?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(1), pages 16-47, January.
    6. Ben S. Bernanke & James Powell, 1986. "The Cyclical Behavior of Industrial Labor Markets: A Comparison of the Prewar and Postwar Eras," NBER Chapters, in: The American Business Cycle: Continuity and Change, pages 583-638, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. H. Osano & T. Inoue, 1988. "Testing Between Competing Models of Business Cycles: The Efficient Long-Term Contract Hypothesis Versus the Intertemporal Substitution Hypothesis," Discussion Papers 768, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    8. Rosen, Sherwin, 1985. "Implicit Contracts: A Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 23(3), pages 1144-1175, September.
    9. Michael P. Keane, 2011. "Labor Supply and Taxes: A Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(4), pages 961-1075, December.
    10. Casey B. Mulligan, 1999. "Substitution over Time: Another Look at Life-Cycle Labor Supply," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1998, volume 13, pages 75-152, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. 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).
    12. Magda Kandil, 2010. "Demand Shocks and the Cyclical Behavior of the Real Wage: Some International Evidence," Journal of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(1), pages 135-158, May.
    13. Martin Schmidt, 2003. "The relative adjustment of wages and prices: direct tests within a multiple-equation system," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(8), pages 985-997.
    14. Ulrich Woitek, 2004. "Real Wages and Business Cycle Asymmetries," CESifo Working Paper Series 1206, CESifo.
    15. 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.
    16. Sophia Dimelis, 1997. "Cyclical and causal relations between real wages and employment in the EU," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(3), pages 311-324.
    17. Martinez-Granado, Maite, 2005. "Testing labour supply and hours constraints," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 321-343, June.
    18. Rotemberg, Julio J. & Woodford, Michael, 1999. "The cyclical behavior of prices and costs," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 16, pages 1051-1135, Elsevier.
    19. Delacroix, Alain, 2004. "Sticky bargained wages," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 25-44, March.
    20. Paul Gomme & Richard Rogerson & Peter Rupert & Randall Wright, 2005. "The Business Cycle and the Life Cycle," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2004, Volume 19, pages 415-592, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    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:nbr:nberwo:2888. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.