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Short-Term and Long-Term Determinants of Moderate Wage Growth in the EU

Author

Listed:
  • Kiss, Aron

    (European Commission)

  • Van Herck, Kristine

    (European Commission, Directorate Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion)

Abstract

This paper analyses the factors explaining moderate wage growth in the EU in the post-crisis period. It investigates whether the historical relationship between wages and unemployment has weakened and whether composition effects moderated wage growth. The results suggest a negative answer to both questions. Wages in the EU have not stopped reacting to unemployment developments after the 2008 crisis. Wage growth was moderate because of low inflation, low trend productivity growth, and high unemployment. There are only a few Member States with a significant 'shortfall' in wage growth, including both low and high-unemployment countries. Migration, ageing and collective bargaining institutions appear to have mostly transitory effects on wage growth. During the last decade, changes in the composition of the workforce had a small but positive impact on wage growth in most of the EU, especially due to increasing average age and education level. In some Member States such as Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and Portugal, composition effects were a main driver of wage growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Kiss, Aron & Van Herck, Kristine, 2019. "Short-Term and Long-Term Determinants of Moderate Wage Growth in the EU," IZA Policy Papers 144, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izapps:pp144
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    1. Faryna, Oleksandr & Pham, Tho & Talavera, Oleksandr & Tsapin, Andriy, 2020. "Wage Setting and Unemployment: Evidence from Online Job Vacancy Data," GLO Discussion Paper Series 503, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    2. Lehner, Lukas & Ramskogler, Paul & Riedl, Aleksandra, 2022. "Begging thy coworker – Labor market dualization and the slow-down of wage growth in Europe," INET Oxford Working Papers 2022-04, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
    3. Caglayan, Mustafa & Talavera, Oleksandr & Xiong, Lin, 2022. "Female small business owners in China: Discouraged, not discriminated," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    4. Walter Paternesi Meloni & Antonella Stirati, 2023. "The decoupling between labour compensation and productivity in high‐income countries: Why is the nexus broken?," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 61(2), pages 425-463, June.
    5. Walter Paternesi Meloni & Antonella Stirati, 2021. "What has driven the delinking of wages from productivity? A political economy-based investigation for high-income economies," Working Papers PKWP2104, Post Keynesian Economics Society (PKES).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    wage growth; Wage Phillips curve; European Union;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity

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