Working Paper Series
IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy
No 1999:2:
Survey evidence on wage rigidity and unemployment: Sweden in the 1990s
Jonas Agell ()
and Per Lundborg
Abstract: This study reports the results from a repeat survey among
managers in Swedish manufacturing, designed to explore how a severe and
prolonged macroeconomic shock affects wage rigidity and unemployment. Our
second survey was conducted in 1998, when the unemployment rate was much
higher, and the inflation rate much lower, than when we conducted the first
survey in 1991. We find no evidence that the increase in unemployment has
softened the mechanisms generating wage rigidity. On the contrary, we
conclude that - because of severe downward nominal wage rigidity - real
wages have become more rigid during Sweden's move to a low-inflation
environment. We also report a range of new evidence on underbidding,
efficiency wage mechanisms, job security legislation, workers' wage norms,
and to what extent the long-term unemployed are subject to statistical
discrimination
Keywords: Unemployment; Wage rigidity; Repeat survey; Recession; (follow links to similar papers)
JEL-Codes: E24; J41; J63; (follow links to similar papers)
36 pages, June 29, 1999
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- This paper is published as:
-
Agell, Jonas and Per Lundborg, (2003), 'Survey evidence on wage rigidity and unemployment: Sweden in the 1990s', Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Vol. 105, No. 1, pages 15-29
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