We study the distributional effect of a wage indexation mechanism - the Scala Mobile (SM) - that heavily compressed the distribution of Italian wages during the 1970s and 1980s. The SM imposed large real wage increases at the bottom of the distribution and was essentially irrelevant for...

This paper examines the consequences of rapid disinflation for downward wage rigidities in two emerging countries, Brazil and Uruguay, relying on high quality matched employer-employee administrative data. Downward nominal wage rigidities are more important in Uruguay, while wage indexation is...

This paper presents information on wage bargaining institutions, collected using a standardized questionnaire. Our data provide information from 1995 and 2006, for four sectors of activity and the aggregate economy, considering 23 European countries, plus the US and Japan. Main findings include...

Examines the evolution of the cyclicality of real wages and employment in four Latin American economies: Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico, during the period 1980-2010. Wages are highly pro-cyclical during the 1980s and early 1990s, a period characterized by high inflation. As inflation...

There is increasing evidence that the interaction between shocks and labour market institutions is crucial to understanding the dynamics of employment. In this paper, we show that the inclusion of labour adjustment costs in a trade model affects the impact of exchange rate movements on...

In this paper, we explore empirically the role of openness, technology and labour market rigidity in the determination of the effect of the exchange rate on employment in Portugal. We develop an index that allows us to measure labour market flexibility at the sector level. This index shows that...

This paper investigates whether exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) into import prices is a nonlinear phenomenon for five heavily indebted Euro area countries, namely the so-called GIIPS group (Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain). Using logistic smooth transition models, we explore the...

We develop a two-sector, heterogeneous-agent model with incomplete financial markets to study the distributional effects and aggregate welfare implications of alternative monetary policy rules in emerging market economies. Relative to inflation targeting, exchange rate management benefits...

In this paper, a survey on theoretically expected and empirically proved impacts of exchange rate volatility is given. With regard to the West German unemployment, the effects of volatility are empirically analysed using three different volatility measures and four country groups. In...