Net real wages in Germany have hardly risen since the beginning of the 1990s. Between 2004 and 2008 they even declined. This is a unique development in Germany-never before has a period of rather strong economic growth been accompanied by a decline in net real wages over a period of several...

The paper attempts to establish a few stylised facts about Euroland's labour market given the increasing importance of smoothly functioning markets in the EMU. We assemble econometric evidence regarding labour demand behaviour, wage-setting mechanisms and the cyclicality of unemployment in...

The paper proposes an approach to evaluate hypotheses about transition dynamics when only the distributions at two points in time are observed. Using the principle of statistical mechanics, we show how to adjust in the "most probable" way a hypothesis so that it becomes compatible with the...

This paper shows that switching the dominant use of household-specific sticky wages in the New Keynesian model (Erceg, Henderson, and Levin 2000) for firm-specific sticky wages has qualitative and quantitative consequences. First, the model with firm-specific sticky wages incorporates endogenous...

Estimates of the NAIRU are usually derived either from a Phillips curve or from a wage curve. This paper investigates the correspondence between the operational NAIRU-concepts and the steady state of a dynamic wage-price model. We derive the parameter restrictions that secure that...

This paper presents estimates based on individual data of downward nominal and real wage rigidities for 13 sectors in Belgium, Denmark, Spain, and Portugal. Our methodology follows the approach recently developed for the International Wage Flexibility Project, whereby resistance to nominal and...

Based on an ad hoc firm-level survey on wage and pricing policies conducted in a large number of European countries, this study finds that about 60% of firms change base wages once a year with some clustering of wage changes observed in January. Differences in the frequency of wage changes...

It has been well established that the wages of individual workers react little, especially downwards, to shocks that hit their employer. This paper presents new evidence from a unique survey of firms across Europe on the prevalence of downward wage rigidity in both real and nominal terms. We...

In this paper attempt is made to examine vulnerability of farm households’ to adverse consequences of climate variables and extreme conditions like: food and cyclone. Three key components impeding food security with in the substance production structure are identified as (i) Inadequate food...

A Statement of the Colombian Constitutional Court has mandated wage indexation on the basis of past inflation. A simple model with a wage price system, a real block, and an inflation targeting interest rule is calibrated to resemble price setting in the Colombian economy and to analize the...