Cyclical Wages in a Search and Bargaining Model with Large Firms
Julio J. Rotemberg
Harvard University - Business, Government and the International Economy Unit; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
February 27, 2006
FRB of Boston Working Paper No. 06-5
Abstract:
This paper presents a complete general equilibrium model with flexible wages, where the degree to which wages and productivity change when cyclical employment changes is roughly consistent with postwar U.S. data. Firms with market power are assumed to bargain simultaneously with many employees, each of whom finds himself matched with a firm only after a process of search. When employment increases as a result of reductions in market power, the marginal product of labor falls. This fall tempers the bargaining power of workers and thus dampens the increase in their real wages. The procyclical movement of wages is dampened further if the posting of vacancies is subject to increasing returns.
Number of Pages in PDF File: 44
JEL Classification: E24, E37, J64
working papers series
Suggested Citation
Rotemberg, Julio J., Cyclical Wages in a Search and Bargaining Model with Large Firms (February 27, 2006). FRB of Boston Working Paper No. 06-5. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=887534 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.887534
