Koenig, Felix, Manning, Alan 
ORCID: 0000-0002-7884-3580 and Petrongolo, Barbara
(2014)
Reservation wages and the wage flexibility puzzle.
CEP Discussion Papers (CEPDP1319).
London School of Economics and Political Science. Centre for Economic Performance, London, UK.
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Abstract
Wages are only mildly cyclical, implying that shocks to labour demand have a larger short-run impact on unemployment rather than wages, at odds with the quantitative predictions of the canonical search and matching model. This paper provides an alternative perspective on the wage flexibility puzzle, explaining why the canonical model can only match the observed cyclicality of wages if the replacement ratio is implausibly high. We show that this failure remains even if wages are only occasionally renegotiated, unless the persistence in unemployment is implausibly low. We then provide some evidence that part of the problem comes from the implicit model for the determination of reservation wages. Estimates for the UK and West Germany provide evidence that reservation wages are much less cyclical than predicted even conditional on the observed level of wage cyclicality. We present evidence that elements of perceived “fairness” or “reference points” in reservation wages may address this model failure.
| Item Type: | Monograph (Discussion Paper) |
|---|---|
| Official URL: | http://cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/publications/series.asp?... |
| Additional Information: | © 2014 The Authors |
| Divisions: | Centre for Economic Performance |
| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor |
| JEL classification: | E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E2 - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment > E24 - Macroeconomics: Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution (includes wage indexation) J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J3 - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs > J31 - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials by Skill, Training, Occupation, etc. J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J6 - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies > J64 - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search |
| Date Deposited: | 06 Jan 2015 14:55 |
| Last Modified: | 01 Oct 2024 03:18 |
| Funders: | Economic and Social Research Council |
| URI: | http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/60613 |
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