empirical characterization of price and wage changes over the last century in the U.S., U.K., and Japan, in order to demonstrate … phenomenon rather than the universal fact implied by Okun. The results for the U.K. and Japan com- pound the conflict with Okun … particularly flexible in the U.S. during World War I and its aftermath, in Japan since 1914, and in the U.K. since the mid-1950s …

.K. and Japan are between three and 15 times more flexible than in the U.S. during the postwar period. Corresponding to … greater flexibility in wages, these two countries also exhibit more stable employment behavior over the business cycle. In … similar to that in Britain and Japan. The contrast between the prewar data and the postwar data, where the U.S. is a definite …