Sticky wages and the Great Depression: evidence from the United Kingdom

Jason Lennard

Economic History Working Papers from London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History

Abstract: How sticky were wages during the Great Depression? Although classic accounts emphasize the importance of nominal rigidity in amplifying deflationary shocks, the evidence is limited. In this paper, I calculate the degree of nominal wage rigidity in the United Kingdom between the wars using new granular data covering millions of wages. I find that nominal wages were more flexible downwards than in most modern economies, but that the frequency and magnitude of wage cuts were too low to fully offset deflation

Keywords: Great Depression; interwar Britain; nominal rigidity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E30 N14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2021-10-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-lma and nep-mac
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http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/112428/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Sticky wages and the Great Depression: evidence from the United Kingdom (2023)
Working Paper: Sticky wages and the Great Depression: evidence from the United Kingdom (2023)
Working Paper: Sticky Wages and the Great Depression: Evidence from the United Kingdom (2022)
Working Paper: Sticky wages and the Great Depression: Evidence from the United Kingdom (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:wpaper:112428

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