As inflation rates in the United States decline, analysts are asking if there are economic reasons to hold the rates at levels above zero. Previous studies of whether inflation "greases the wheels" of the labor market ignore inflation's potential for disrupting wage patterns in the same market....

"In economies with sticky-information wage setting, policymakers legitimately give attention to output stabilization as well as price-level or inflation stabilization. Consistent with Kydland and Prescott (1990), trend deviations in prices are predicted to be negatively correlated with trend...

The recent surge in inflation led many unions and firms to alter their bargaining and wage-setting policies. Using novel German firm-level survey data, we document the extent of state dependence in wage setting across firms and workers during periods of high and low inflation. We find state...