IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v82y1992i1p122-40.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Changes in the Cyclical Sensitivity of Wages in the United States, 1891-1987

Author

Listed:
  • Allen, Steven G

Abstract

The conventional wisdom that nominal wages became less sensitive to the business cycle and more autocorrelated after World War II is reexamined here by considering whether these properties are artifacts of the methods used to construct prewar wage series. A replication based on these methods is more cyclically sensitive and exhibits less autocorrelation than the postwar data. Aggregation using variable instead of fixed employment weights also greatly exaggerates the cyclicality of prewar wages. These biases imply that wages are just as sensitive to the cycle today as one hundred years ago, perhaps even more so. Copyright 1992 by American Economic Association.

Suggested Citation

  • Allen, Steven G, 1992. "Changes in the Cyclical Sensitivity of Wages in the United States, 1891-1987," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(1), pages 122-140, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:82:y:1992:i:1:p:122-40
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Olivier J. Blanchard & Lawrence H. Summers, 1986. "Hysteresis and the European Unemployment Problem," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1986, Volume 1, pages 15-90, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. J. Bradford DeLong & Lawrence H. Summers, 1986. "The Changing Cyclical Variability of Economic Activity in the United States," NBER Chapters, in: The American Business Cycle: Continuity and Change, pages 679-734, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Oi, Walter Y., 1976. "On measuring the impact of wage-price controls: A critical appraisal," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 7-64, January.
    4. G. Warren Nutter & Israel Borenstein & Adam Kaufman, 1962. "Growth of Industrial Production in the Soviet Union," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number nutt62-1.
    5. John B. Taylor, 1986. "Improvements in Macroeconomic Stability: The Role of Wages and Prices," NBER Chapters, in: The American Business Cycle: Continuity and Change, pages 639-678, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Blanchard, Olivier J. & Summers, Lawrence H., 1987. "Hysteresis in unemployment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(1-2), pages 288-295.
    7. repec:pri:indrel:dsp013f462541m is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Kim B. Clark & Lawrence H. Summers, 1979. "Labor Market Dynamics and Unemployemnt: A Reconsideration," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 10(1), pages 13-72.
    9. Charles L. Schultze, 1981. "Some Macro Foundations for Micro Theory," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 12(2), pages 521-592.
    10. Keyssar,Alexander, 1986. "Out of Work," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521297677, October.
    11. Romer, Christina, 1986. "Spurious Volatility in Historical Unemployment Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(1), pages 1-37, February.
    12. Santomero, Anthony M & Seater, John J, 1978. "The Inflation-Unemployment Trade-off: A Critique of the Literature," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 499-544, 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. Kandil, Magda & Woods, Jeffrey G., 1995. "A cross-industry examination of the Lucas misperceptions model," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 55-76.
    2. Thomas A. Garrett, 2009. "War And Pestilence As Labor Market Shocks: U.S. Manufacturing Wage Growth 1914–1919," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 47(4), pages 711-725, October.
    3. Barry Eichengreen., 1993. "International Monetary Arrangements for the 21st Century," Center for International and Development Economics Research (CIDER) Working Papers C93-021, University of California at Berkeley.
    4. Barry Eichengreen., 1994. "History and Reform of the International Monetary System," Center for International and Development Economics Research (CIDER) Working Papers C94-041, University of California at Berkeley.
    5. Maurice Obstfeld, 1993. "The Adjustment Mechanism," NBER Chapters, in: A Retrospective on the Bretton Woods System: Lessons for International Monetary Reform, pages 201-268, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Baffigi, Alberto & Bontempi, Maria Elena & Felice, Emanuele & Golinelli, Roberto, 2015. "The changing relationship between inflation and the economic cycle in Italy: 1861–2012," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 53-70.
    7. Daniel Kaufmann, 2020. "Is deflation costly after all? The perils of erroneous historical classifications," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(5), pages 614-628, August.
    8. Barry Eichengreen., 1993. "Prerequisites for International Monetary Stability," Center for International and Development Economics Research (CIDER) Working Papers C93-018, University of California at Berkeley.
    9. Barry Eichengreen., 1994. "Deja Vu All Over Again: Lessons from the Gold Standard for European Monetary Unification," Center for International and Development Economics Research (CIDER) Working Papers C94-032, University of California at Berkeley.
    10. Barry Eichengreen., 1992. "The Political Economy of Fiscal Policy After EMU," Center for International and Development Economics Research (CIDER) Working Papers C92-004, University of California at Berkeley.
    11. Drazen Derado & Antonela Mlikota, 2007. "Is Croatia Ready For The Emu?: An Ex Ante Analysis Of Nominal And Real Convergence," Economic Thought and Practice, Department of Economics and Business, University of Dubrovnik, vol. 16(2), pages 113-146, december.
    12. M.K. Lewis, 1994. "Monetary Policy‐Do We Need a New Agenda?," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 70(211), pages 434-455, December.
    13. Daniel Kaufmann, 2016. "Is Deflation Costly After All? Evidence from Noisy Historical Data," KOF Working papers 16-421, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.
    14. Charles W. Calomiris & Christopher Hanes, 1994. "Historical Macroeconomics and American Macroeconomic History," NBER Working Papers 4935, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Amuedo-Dorantes, Catalina & Pozo, Susan, 2001. "Prewar and Postwar Macroeconomic Uncertainty: An International Perspective," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 615-631, October.
    16. Alan M. Taylor & Natalia Chernyshoff & David Jacks, 2005. "Stuck on Gold:Real Exchange Rate Volatility and the Rise and Fall of the Gold Standard, 1870?1939," Working Papers 237, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    17. Ward, Felix & Chen, Yao, 2016. "Rigid relations: External adjustment under the Gold Standard (1880-1913)," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145930, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    18. Chernyshoff, Natalia & Jacks, David S. & Taylor, Alan M., 2009. "Stuck on gold: Real exchange rate volatility and the rise and fall of the gold standard, 1875-1939," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 195-205, April.
    19. Dighe, Ranjit S. & Schmitt, Elizabeth Dunne, 2010. "Did U.S. wages become stickier between the world wars?," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 165-181, August.
    20. Daniel Kaufmann, 2019. "Nominal stability over two centuries," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 155(1), pages 1-23, December.
    21. Christina D. Romer, 1993. "The Nation in Depression," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(2), pages 19-39, Spring.
    22. Magda Kandil, 2006. "Nominal Wage Flexibility and Economic Performance: Evidence and Implications Across Industrial Countries," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(1), pages 25-49, January.

    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. Allen, Steven G., 1989. "Changes in the Cyclical Sensitivity of Wages in the United States, 1891-1987," Department of Economics and Business - Archive 259452, North Carolina State University, Department of Economics.
    2. Eichengreen, Barry & Hatton, Tim, 1988. "Interwar Unemployment in International Perspective," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt7bw188gk, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    3. repec:aeb:wpaper:201604:i:4:y:2016 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Ulrike Malmendier & Leslie Sheng Shen, 2024. "Scarred Consumption," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 322-355, January.
    5. Guisinger, Amy Y. & Hernandez-Murillo, Ruben & Owyang, Michael T. & Sinclair, Tara M., 2018. "A state-level analysis of Okun's law," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 239-248.
    6. Roger E. A. Farmer, 1990. "AIL Theory and the Ailing Phillips Curve: A Contract-Based Approach to Aggregate Supply," NBER Chapters, in: Asymmetric Information, Corporate Finance, and Investment, pages 207-230, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Gabriel P. Mathy, 2018. "Hysteresis and persistent long-term unemployment: the American Beveridge Curve of the Great Depression and World War II," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 12(1), pages 127-152, January.
    8. Thomas L. Hogan & Daniel J. Smith, 2022. "War, money & economy: Inflation and production in the Fed and pre-Fed periods," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 35(1), pages 15-37, March.
    9. Keating, John W. & Nye, John V., 1999. "The Dynamic Effects of Aggregate Demand and Supply Disturbances in the G7 Countries," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 263-278, April.
    10. Jacoby, Sanford M. & Sharma, Sunil, 1992. "Employment Duration and Industrial Labor Mobility in the United States, 1880–1980," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(1), pages 161-179, March.
    11. Ángel L. Martín‐Román & Jaime Cuéllar‐Martín & Alfonso Moral, 2023. "Natural and cyclical unemployment: A stochastic frontier decomposition and economic policy implications," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(1), pages 5-39, January.
    12. Richard Rogerson, 1997. "Theory Ahead of Language in the Economics of Unemployment," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 73-92, Winter.
    13. Charles W. Calomiris & Christopher Hanes, 1994. "Historical Macroeconomics and American Macroeconomic History," NBER Working Papers 4935, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Raphaël Tresmontant, 1991. "Chômage : les chances d'en sortir," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 241(1), pages 41-51.
    15. Selgin, George & Lastrapes, William D. & White, Lawrence H., 2012. "Has the Fed been a failure?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 569-596.
    16. M. Scattaglia, 1994. "Politiche per l'occupazione e Microfondamenti "Keynesiani" dell'economia del lavoro," Working Papers 196, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    17. Blinder, Alan S, 1988. "The Challenge of High Unemployment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(2), pages 1-15, May.
    18. Zens, Gregor & Böck, Maximilian & Zörner, Thomas O., 2020. "The heterogeneous impact of monetary policy on the US labor market," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    19. George Alogoskoufis, 2016. "Unemployment Persistence, Inflation and Monetary Policy in A Dynamic Stochastic Model of the Phillips Curve," Working Papers 201604, Athens University Of Economics and Business, Department of Economics.
    20. Justin Doran & Bernard Fingleton, 2014. "Economic shocks and growth: Spatio-temporal perspectives on Europe's economies in a time of crisis," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 93, pages 137-165, November.
    21. Franz, Wolfgang, 1990. "Hysteresis in Economic Relationships: An Overview," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 109-125.

    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:aea:aecrev:v:82:y:1992:i:1:p:122-40. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.