 Wage Rigidity and Unemployment in OECD Countries (1983)David Grubb and R. Jackman Chapter 3 in Tackling Unemployment, 1999, pp 22-51 from Palgrave Macmillan Abstract: Abstract Real wage rigidity is often blamed for causing unemployment in the wake of adverse real shocks, like changes in productivity or the terms of trade. Likewise nominal wage rigidity is blamed for causing unemployment in the wake of adverse nominal shocks, like falls in nominal demand.1 However, there has been relatively little systematic discussion of how these concepts should be defined. Some authors (e.g. Sachs, 1979) have defined real wage rigidity as the opposite of nominal wage rigidity, with the US nominally rigid and Europe really rigid.2 The rigidity of European real wages has then been used to explain why Europe has experienced a greater increase in unemployment since 1973 than the US. But in this discussion real wage rigidity has not been measured in a way which would in fact predict how much unemployment would result from a given real shock. The discussion has focused on the degree of nominal inertia in the system. But the unemployment cost of real shocks does not depend primarily on the degree of nominal inertia but rather on the effect of unemployment in the Phillips curve. Keywords: Real Wage; Wage Equation; Phillips Curve; Price Equation; Wage Rigidity (search for similar items in EconPapers) There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it. Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-37920-6_3 Ordering information: This item can be ordered from Access Statistics for this chapter More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.