At the turn of the millennium three frequently cited potential causes of new challenges for wage policy in Germany are revisited in this study: skilled- biased technological progress, the increasing international integration of labor and product markets, and the monetary integration of the EMU....

Neglected, but significant, the long-run consequence of the minimum wage - which was made national policy in the United States in 1938 - is its stimulation of capital deepening. This took two forms. First, the engineered shortage of low-skill, low-paying jobs induced teenagers to invest in...

This paper applies principles from evolutionary biology to the study of unions. We show that unions which maximize the present discounted wages of current members will be displaced in evolutionary competition by unions with more moderate wage policies that allow their firms to live longer. This...

The paper develops a simple stochastic new open economy macroeconomic model based on sticky nominal wages. Explicit solution of the wage-setting problem under uncertainty allows one to analyze the effects of the monetary regime on welfare, expected output, and the expected terms of trade....

This paper analyzes two simple wage rules that keep employment constant when there are shocks to the prices of imported materials. One rule ties nominal wages to the GNP deflator rather than the consumer price index. The second rule, followed by Japan after the second oil price shock, ties the...

This paper contains a theoretical analysis of and summaries of empirical information on consequences of wage floors in the labor market imposed by minimum wages and by labor unions. Excess supplies are rationed in part probabilistically ("first come, first served"), and in part systematically --...

Along with house rents, wages have frequently been described as the "stickiest" prices in the economy, rarely adjusted more than once a year. Because of this stickiness (which arises from the transactions costs involved in changing wages), a distinction exists between the adjustment of wages and...

The paper constructs an asymmetric information model to investigate the efficiency and equity cases for government mandated benefits. A mandate can improve workers' insurance, and may also redistribute in favor of more "deserving" workers. The risk is that it may also reduce output. The more...