This paper evaluates competing theories of wage rigidity against available quantitative and qualitative evidence from the 1930s. I focus on five explanations of wage stickiness in particular: institutional impediments to wage adjustment; labor-supply explanations; efficiency wages; implicit...

Using administrative data from Germany, this paper analyzes the relation between wages and past and current labor market conditions. Specifically, it explores whether the data is more consistent with implicit contract models (Beaudry/DiNardo, 1991) or a matching model with on-the-job search and...