IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ucy/cypeua/0210.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Nominal Wage Rigidity in Contract Data: A Parametric Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Louis N. Christofides
  • Man Tuen Leung

Abstract

Using wage agreements reached in the Canadian unionized sector during 1976-99, a period of high as well as exceptionally low inflation, we consider how histograms of wage adjustment change as inflation reaches the low levels of the 1990s. The histograms and parametric tests suggest that wage adjustment is characterized by downward nominal rigidity and significant spikes at zero. There is some evidence of modest menu-cost effects. We examine whether the rigidity features of wage adjustment are sensitive to indexation provisions and investigate whether the distinction between short and long contracts is useful.

Suggested Citation

  • Louis N. Christofides & Man Tuen Leung, 2002. "Nominal Wage Rigidity in Contract Data: A Parametric Approach," University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics 0210, University of Cyprus Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucy:cypeua:0210
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://papers.econ.ucy.ac.cy/RePEc/papers/0210.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. N. Gregory Mankiw, 1985. "Small Menu Costs and Large Business Cycles: A Macroeconomic Model of Monopoly," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(2), pages 529-538.
    2. 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.
    3. Charles Freedman & Tiff Macklem, 1998. "A Comment on "The Great Canadian Slump"," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 31(3), pages 646-665, August.
    4. Laurence Ball & David Romer, 1990. "Real Rigidities and the Non-Neutrality of Money," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 57(2), pages 183-203.
    5. repec:bla:econom:v:57:y:1990:i:227:p:395-409 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Katharine G. Abraham & John C. Haltiwanger, 1995. "Real Wages and the Business Cycle," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(3), pages 1215-1264, September.
    7. Kahn, Shulamit, 1997. "Evidence of Nominal Wage Stickiness from Microdata," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(5), pages 993-1008, December.
    8. 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.
    9. Smith, Jennifer C, 2000. "Nominal Wage Rigidity in the United Kingdom," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(462), pages 176-195, March.
    10. 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.
    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. Andrew S. Caplin & Daniel F. Spulber, 1987. "Menu Costs and the Neutrality of Money," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(4), pages 703-725.
    13. Thanasis Stengos & Louis N. Christofides, 2002. "The symmetry of the wage-change distribution: Survey and contract data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 27(4), pages 705-723.
    14. David E. Lebow & David J. Stockton & William L. Wascher, 1995. "Inflation, nominal wage rigidity, and the efficiency of labor markets," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 95-45, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    15. David Card, 1983. "Cost-of-Living Escalators in Major Union Contracts," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 37(1), pages 34-48, October.
    16. Card, David, 1986. "An Empirical Model of Wage Indexation Provisions in Union Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(3), pages 144-175, June.
    17. repec:bla:scandj:v:97:y:1995:i:2:p:295-307 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Vroman, Wayne, 1984. "Wage Contract Settlements in U.S. Manufacturing," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 66(4), pages 661-665, November.
    19. George A. Akerlof & Janet L. Yellen, 1985. "A Near-Rational Model of the Business Cycle, with Wage and Price Inertia," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(Supplemen), pages 823-838.
    20. Christofides, L.N., 1989. "The Interaction Between Indexation, Contract Duration And Non-Contengent Wage Adjustment," Working Papers 1989-13, University of Guelph, Department of Economics and Finance.
    21. Kaufman, Roger T & Woglom, Geoffrey, 1984. "The Effects of Expectations on Union Wages," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(3), pages 418-432, June.
    22. Christofides, Louis N, 1987. "Wage Adjustment in Contracts Containing Cost-of-Living Allowance Clauses," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 69(3), pages 531-536, August.
    23. Jean Farès & Seamus Hogan, 2000. "The Employment Costs of Downward Nominal-Wage Rigidity," Staff Working Papers 00-1, Bank of Canada.
    24. Ronald G. Ehrenberg & Leif Danziger & Gee San, 1982. "Cost-of-Living Adjustment Clauses in Union Contracts," NBER Working Papers 0998, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. Wayne Simpson & Norman E. Cameron & Derek Hum, 1998. "Is Hypoinflation Good Policy?," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 24(3), pages 291-308, September.
    26. Pierre Fortin, 1996. "The Great Canadian Slump," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 29(4), pages 761-787, November.
    27. McLaughlin, Kenneth J., 1994. "Rigid wages?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 383-414, December.
    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. Francesco Devicienti & Agata Maida, 2004. "Rigidità salariali e ruolo delle istituzioni: l'evidenza empirica da microdati," LABORatorio R. Revelli Working Papers Series 35, LABORatorio R. Revelli, Centre for Employment Studies.
    2. Liam Graham & Dennis J. Snower, 2008. "Hyperbolic Discounting and the Phillips Curve," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(2-3), pages 427-448, March.
    3. Holden Steinar & Wulfsberg Fredrik, 2008. "Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity in the OECD," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-50, April.
    4. Holden, Steinar & Wulfsberg, Fredrik, 2004. "Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity in Europe," Memorandum 08/2004, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    5. Francesco Devicienti & Agata Maida & Paolo Sestito, 2007. "Downward Wage Rigidity in Italy: Micro-Based Measures and Implications," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(524), pages 530-552, November.
    6. Christoph Knoppik & Thomas Beissinger, 2009. "Downward nominal wage rigidity in Europe: an analysis of European micro data from the ECHP 1994–2001," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 36(2), pages 321-338, May.
    7. 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.
    8. Pavel Gertler & Matúš Senaj, 2010. "Downward Wage Rigidities in Slovakia," Czech Economic Review, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, vol. 4(1), pages 079-101, March.
    9. Christofides, Louis N. & Nearchou, Paris, 2007. "Real and nominal wage rigidities in collective bargaining agreements," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 695-715, August.
    10. Barno Blaes, 2008. "Ausmaß und reale Konsequenzen nach unten starrer Nominallöhne," Working Papers 048, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    11. Steinar Holden & Fredrik Wulfsberg, 2004. "Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity in Europe (new title: The costs of price stability - downward nominal wage rigidity in Europe)," CESifo Working Paper Series 1177, CESifo.
    12. repec:bla:germec:v:11:y:2010:i::p:169-187 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Kuroda, Sachiko & Yamamoto, Isamu, 2005. "Wage Fluctuations in Japan after the Bursting of the Bubble Economy: Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity, Payroll, and the Unemployment Rate," Monetary and Economic Studies, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, vol. 23(2), pages 1-29, May.
    14. Andreas Behr & Ulrich Pötter, 2010. "Downward Wage Rigidity in Europe: A New Flexible Parametric Approach and Empirical Results," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 11(2), pages 169-187, May.

    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. 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.
    2. Louis Christofides & Thanasis Stengos, 2001. "Nominal Wage Rigidity: Non-Parametric Tests Based on Union Data for Canada," CESifo Working Paper Series 535, CESifo.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Kuroda, Sachiko & Yamamoto, Isamu, 2003. "Are Japanese Nominal Wages Downwardly Rigid? (Part II): Examinations Using a Friction Model," Monetary and Economic Studies, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, vol. 21(2), pages 31-68, August.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. Steinar Holden & Fredrik Wulfsberg, 2004. "Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity in Europe," Working Paper 2004/5, Norges Bank.
    11. 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.
    12. Seamus Hogan, 1998. "What Does Downward Nominal-Wage Rigidity Imply for Monetary Policy?," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 24(4), pages 513-525, December.
    13. Basu, S. & House, C.L., 2016. "Allocative and Remitted Wages," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 297-354, Elsevier.
    14. George A. Akerlof, 2007. "The Missing Motivation in Macroeconomics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 5-36, March.
    15. 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.
    16. Louis Christofides & Chen Peng, 2006. "Major Provisions of Labour Contracts and their Theoretical Coherence," CESifo Working Paper Series 1700, CESifo.
    17. Truman F. Bewley, 2002. "Fairness, Reciprocity, and Wage Rigidity," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1383, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    18. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2291-2372 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Pierre Fortin, 2013. "The Macroeconomics of Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity : a Review of the Issues and New Evidence for Canada," Cahiers de recherche 1309, CIRPEE.
    20. 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.).
    21. Mr. Jörg Decressin & Mr. Anja Decressin, 2002. "On Sand and the Role of Grease in Labor Markets: How Does Germany Compare?," IMF Working Papers 2002/164, International Monetary Fund.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Low Wage Inflation; Nominal Rigidity; Menu-Costs;
    All these 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:ucy:cypeua:0210. 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://www.ucy.ac.cy/econ/?lang=en .

    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.