IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_9281.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Globalisation and the Decoupling of Inflation from Domestic Labour Costs

Author

Listed:
  • Emanuel Kohlscheen
  • Richhild Moessner

Abstract

We provide novel systematic cross-country evidence that the link between domestic labour markets and CPI inflation has weakened considerably in advanced economies during recent decades. The central estimate is that the short-run pass-through from domestic labour cost changes to core CPI inflation decreased from 0.25 in the 1980s to just 0.02 in the 2010s, while the longrun pass-through fell from 0.36 to 0.03, with the estimates in the 2010s no longer significant. We show that the timing of the collapse in the pass-through coincides with a steep increase in import penetration from a group of major manufacturing EMEs around the turn of the millennium, which signals increased competition and market contestability.

Suggested Citation

  • Emanuel Kohlscheen & Richhild Moessner, 2021. "Globalisation and the Decoupling of Inflation from Domestic Labour Costs," CESifo Working Paper Series 9281, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9281
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp9281.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Auer, Raphael A. & Degen, Kathrin & Fischer, Andreas M., 2013. "Low-wage import competition, inflationary pressure, and industry dynamics in Europe," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 141-166.
    2. Elena Bobeica & Matteo Ciccarelli & Isabel Vansteenkiste, 2019. "The link between labor cost and price inflation in the euro area," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 848, Central Bank of Chile.
    3. Ekaterina V. Peneva & Jeremy B. Rudd, 2017. "The Passthrough of Labor Costs to Price Inflation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 49(8), pages 1777-1802, December.
    4. Kristin J. Forbes, 2019. "Inflation Dynamics: Dead, Dormant, or Determined Abroad?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 50(2 (Fall)), pages 257-338.
    5. Martina Jašová & Richhild Moessner & Elöd Takáts, 2019. "Exchange Rate Pass-Through: What Has Changed Since the Crisis?," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 15(3), pages 27-58, September.
    6. Sebastian Heise & Fatih Karahan & Ayşegül Şahin, 2022. "The Missing Inflation Puzzle: The Role of the Wage‐Price Pass‐Through," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 54(S1), pages 7-51, February.
    7. Axel Dreher, 2006. "Does globalization affect growth? Evidence from a new index of globalization," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(10), pages 1091-1110.
    8. Pesaran, M. Hashem & Smith, Ron, 1995. "Estimating long-run relationships from dynamic heterogeneous panels," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 79-113, July.
    9. Gordon, Robert J, 1988. "The Role of Wages in the Inflation Process," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(2), pages 276-283, May.
    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. Hukkinen, Juhana & Viren, Matti, 2024. "Was Globalization the Root Cause of Low Inflation?," Economia Internazionale / International Economics, Camera di Commercio Industria Artigianato Agricoltura di Genova, vol. 77(3), pages 337-370.
    2. Gabriel Felbermayr & Benjamin Bittschi & Josef Baumgartner, 2023. "Kollektivvertragsverhandlungen in Zeiten hoher Inflation," WIFO Monatsberichte (monthly reports), WIFO, vol. 96(9), pages 613-632, September.
    3. Kohlscheen, Emanuel & Moessner, Richhild, 2022. "Globalisation and the slope of the Phillips curve," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
    4. Wifo, 2023. "WIFO-Monatsberichte, Heft 9/2023," WIFO Monatsberichte (monthly reports), WIFO, vol. 96(9), September.

    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. Kohlscheen, Emanuel & Moessner, Richhild, 2022. "Globalisation and the slope of the Phillips curve," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
    2. Wifo, 2023. "WIFO-Monatsberichte, Heft 9/2023," WIFO Monatsberichte (monthly reports), WIFO, vol. 96(9), September.
    3. Fabian Eser & Peter Karadi & Philip R. Lane & Laura Moretti & Chiara Osbat, 2020. "The Phillips Curve at the ECB," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 88(S1), pages 50-85, September.
    4. Ampudia, Miguel & Lombardi, Marco Jacopo & Renault, Théodore, 2024. "The wage-price pass-through across sectors: evidence from the euro area," Working Paper Series 2948, European Central Bank.
    5. Hahn, Elke, 2020. "The wage-price pass-through in the euro area: does the growth regime matter?," Working Paper Series 2485, European Central Bank.
    6. Bobeica, Elena & Ciccarelli, Matteo & Vansteenkiste, Isabel, 2021. "The changing link between labor cost and price inflation in the United States," Working Paper Series 2583, European Central Bank.
    7. Gabriel Felbermayr & Benjamin Bittschi & Josef Baumgartner, 2023. "Kollektivvertragsverhandlungen in Zeiten hoher Inflation," WIFO Monatsberichte (monthly reports), WIFO, vol. 96(9), pages 613-632, September.
    8. Huy Quang Doan, 2019. "Trade, Institutional Quality and Income: Empirical Evidence for Sub-Saharan Africa," Economies, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-23, May.
    9. Hjortsoe, Ida & Lewis, John, 2020. "Non-linearities, asymmetries and dollar currency pricing in exchange rate pass-through: evidence from the sectoral level," Bank of England working papers 868, Bank of England.
    10. Joscha Beckmann & Mariarosaria Comunale, 2020. "Exchange rate fluctuations and the financial channel in emerging economies," Bank of Lithuania Working Paper Series 83, Bank of Lithuania.
    11. Guan, Zepeng & Hossain, Mohammad Razib & Sheikh, Muhammad Ramzan & Khan, Zeeshan & Gu, Xiao, 2023. "Unveiling the interconnectedness between energy-related GHGs and pro-environmental energy technology: Lessons from G-7 economies with MMQR approach," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 281(C).
    12. Guido Ascari & Luca Fosso, 2021. "The Inflation Rate Disconnect Puzzle: On the International Component of Trend Inflation and the Flattening of the Phillips Curve," Working Paper 2021/17, Norges Bank.
    13. Manoel Bittencourt & Reneé Eyden & Monaheng Seleteng, 2015. "Inflation and Economic Growth: Evidence from the Southern African Development Community," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 83(3), pages 411-424, September.
    14. Bańbura, Marta & Bobeica, Elena, 2023. "Does the Phillips curve help to forecast euro area inflation?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 364-390.
    15. Lazăr, Dorina & Minea, Alexandru & Purcel, Alexandra-Anca, 2019. "Pollution and economic growth: Evidence from Central and Eastern European countries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 1121-1131.
    16. Michael Funke & Doudou Zhong, 2024. "The political globalization trilemma revisited: An empirical assessment across countries and over time," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(1), pages 177-201, March.
    17. Arshi Shahid & Hafiz Khalil Ahmad & Saima Liaqat, 2020. "Inflation, Globalization and Interest Rate Nexus to Curb Price volatility: An Empirical Cross-Country Analysis," Global Economics Review, Humanity Only, vol. 5(1), pages 153-165, March.
    18. Diego A. Comin & Robert C. Johnson, 2020. "Offshoring and Inflation," NBER Working Papers 27957, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Jeroen Klomp & Jakob De Haan, 2013. "Do political budget cycles really exist?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(3), pages 329-341, January.
    20. Bobeica, Elena & Koester, Gerrit & Lis, Eliza & Nickel, Christiane & Porqueddu, Mario, 2019. "Understanding low wage growth in the euro area and European countries," Occasional Paper Series 232, European Central Bank.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    competition; globalisation; import penetration; inflation; labour market; pass-through; wage;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E50 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - General
    • F10 - International Economics - - Trade - - - General
    • F60 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - General
    • J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General

    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:ces:ceswps:_9281. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.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.