IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/sofiwp/2008_003.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Wage Redistribution and the Long Run Phillips Curve

Author

Listed:
  • Lundborg, Per

    (Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University)

Abstract

We derive a long-run Phillips curve that is negatively sloped at low inflation rates. Due to exogenous changes, unions want to redistribute wages across different members also in the long run. Wage stickiness, inflation targeting and union solidarity are central characteristics of our New Keynesian model. In the model, high enough inflation becomes the grease of the economy that allows wage redistribution across unions without causing unemployment to rise above NAIRU. We show that under nominal wage rigidity, long-run unemployment may rise drastically and at zero inflation, unemployment may be trapped at very high levels even if demands for wage redistribution tapers off. Under real wage rigidity, the economy may get trapped at high unemployment also at positive but low inflation rates irrespective of demand for wage redistribution has vanished or not. Thus, a period of wage redistribution may cause an economy of full real wage rigidity to get trapped at a high unemployment rate. A policy conclusion is that economies characterized by extensive wage rigidity should not target inflation at too low levels.

Suggested Citation

  • Lundborg, Per, 2008. "Wage Redistribution and the Long Run Phillips Curve," Working Paper Series 3/2008, Stockholm University, Swedish Institute for Social Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:sofiwp:2008_003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sofi.su.se/content/1/c6/03/09/74/WP08no3.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lundborg, Per & Sacklén, Hans, 2003. "Low-Inflation Targeting and Unemployment Persistence," Working Paper Series 188, Trade Union Institute for Economic Research.
    2. Joseph G. Altonji & Paul J. Devereux, 1999. "The Extent and Consequences of Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity," NBER Working Papers 7236, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. 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.
    4. Kahn, Shulamit, 1997. "Evidence of Nominal Wage Stickiness from Microdata," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(5), pages 993-1008, December.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. Tobin, James, 1972. "Inflation and Unemployment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(1), pages 1-18, March.
    8. George A. Akerlof & William T. Dickens & George L. Perry, 2000. "Near-Rational Wage and Price Setting and the Long-Run Phillips Curve," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 31(1), pages 1-60.
    9. McLaughlin, Kenneth J., 1994. "Rigid wages?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 383-414, December.
    10. David E. Lebow & Raven E. Saks & Beth Anne Wilson, 1999. "Downward nominal wage rigidity: evidence from the employment cost index," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 1999-31, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    11. repec:bla:scandj:v:97:y:1995:i:2:p:295-307 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Steinar Holden, 2002. "The Costs of Price Stability - Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity in Europe," NBER Working Papers 8865, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Thomas Beissinger & Chritoph Knoppik, 2005. "Sind Nominallöhne starr? Neuere Evidenz und wirtschaftspolitische Implikationen," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 6(2), pages 171-188, May.
    2. Louis N. Christofides & Thanasis Stengos, 2003. "Wage Rigidity in Canadian Collective Bargaining Agreements," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 56(3), pages 429-448, April.
    3. Elsby, Michael W.L., 2009. "Evaluating the economic significance of downward nominal wage rigidity," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 154-169, March.
    4. Böckerman, Petri & Laaksonen, Seppo & Vainiomäki, Jari, 2006. "Micro-level evidence on wage rigidities in Finland," MPRA Paper 1811, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Steinar Holden & Fredrik Wulfsberg, 2004. "Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity in Europe," Working Paper 2004/5, Norges Bank.
    6. Beissinger Thomas & Knoppik Christoph, 2001. "Downward Nominal Rigidity in West German Earnings, 1975-95," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 2(4), pages 385-417, December.
    7. Dany Brouillette & Olena Kostyshyna & Natalia Kyui, 2018. "Downward nominal wage rigidity in Canada: Evidence from micro-level data," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 51(3), pages 968-1002, August.
    8. Louis Christofides & Thanasis Stengos, 2001. "Nominal Wage Rigidity: Non-Parametric Tests Based on Union Data for Canada," CESifo Working Paper Series 535, CESifo.
    9. 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.
    10. Pierre Fortin & George A. Akerlof & William T. Dickens & George L. Perry, 2002. "Inflation and Unemployment in the U.S. and Canada: A Common Framework," Cahiers de recherche du Département des sciences économiques, UQAM 20-16, Université du Québec à Montréal, Département des sciences économiques.
    11. 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.
    12. Daniel Schäfer & Carl Singleton, 2020. "Nominal Wage Adjustments and the Composition of Pay: New Evidence from Payroll Data," Economics working papers 2020-11, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    13. 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.
    14. Kuroda, Sachiko & Yamamoto, Isamu, 2003. "The Impact of Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity on the Unemployment Rate: Quantitative Evidence from Japan," Monetary and Economic Studies, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, vol. 21(4), pages 57-85, December.
    15. Barno Blaes, 2008. "Ausmaß und reale Konsequenzen nach unten starrer Nominallöhne," Working Papers 048, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    16. Patrick A. Puhani, 2000. "On the Identification of Relative Wage Rigidity Dynamics," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 343, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    17. Bruce Fallick & Michael Lettau & William L. Wascher, 2016. "Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity in the United States during and after the Great Recession," Working Papers (Old Series) 1602, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    18. Francesco Devicienti, 2002. "Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity in Italy: Evidence and Consequences," LABORatorio R. Revelli Working Papers Series 20, LABORatorio R. Revelli, Centre for Employment Studies.
    19. Andersen, Torben M., 2002. "Nominal rigidities and the optimal rate of inflation," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 375-389, June.
    20. George A. Akerlof, 2007. "The Missing Motivation in Macroeconomics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 5-36, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    -;

    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:hhs:sofiwp:2008_003. 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: Daniel Rossetti The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Daniel Rossetti to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sofsuse.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.