International Adjustment with Wage Rigidity / William H. Branson, Julio J. Rotemberg.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Branson, William H.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Rotemberg, Julio J.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w0406.

NBER working paper series no. w0406

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Wages.

Wages--Mathematical models.

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1979.

Cambridge, Mass. : National Bureau of Economic Research, 1979.

Summary:

Two of the puzzling macroeconomic phenomena of the 1970s have been the persistent stagnation in Europe, and the disagreement between the U.S. and Europe on the feasibility of recovery by demand expansion. This paper develops the hypothesis that the source of both the stagnation and the policy differences is money-wage stickiness in the U.S. and real-wage stickiness in Europe and Japan. A real wage which is sticky above its equilibrium level in Europe and Japan would account for stagnation and infeasibility of recovery by demand expansion. The theoretical models are developed in both the one-commodity and two-commodity-bundle cases. The empirical results confirm that in the U.S. the nominal wage adjusts slowly toward equilibrium, while in Germany, Italy, Japan, and the U.K. the real wage adjusts slowly.

Notes:

Print version record

November 1979.