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The return of the wage Phillips curve

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Abstract

The standard New Keynesian model with staggered wage setting is shown to imply a simple dynamic relation between wage inflation and unemployment. Under some assumptions, that relation takes a form similar to that found in empirical wage equations-starting from Phillips' (1958) original work-and may thus be viewed as providing some theoretical foundations to the latter. The structural wage equation derived here is shown to account reasonably well for the comovement of wage inflation and the unemployment rate in the U.S. economy, even under the strong assumption of a constant natural rate of unemployment.

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  • Jordi Galí, 2009. "The return of the wage Phillips curve," Economics Working Papers 1199, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Jun 2010.
    • Handle: RePEc:upf:upfgen:1199
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    staggered nominal wage setting; New Keynesian model; unemployment fluctuations; empirical wage equations.;
    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
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles

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