An optimizing model of U.S. wage and price dynamics

The objective of this paper is to provide an optimizing model of wage and price setting consistent with U.S. data. I first investigate the predictions of an optimizing labor supply model for the aggregate nominal wage, taking as given the evolution of prices and quantities. In this part I seek to determine whether a standard specification of households’ preferences over consumption and leisure is consistent with the data, and to what extent nominal rigidities in the wage setting process improve the fit with the data. Then I combine the evolution of wages predicted by this model with the evolution of prices predicted by staggered-price models to provide a model of the joint determination of prices and wages, given the evolution of real quantities. The paper thus supplies a “Phillips curve” specification that is consistent with intertemporal optimization and rational expectations.