This paper introduces innovative, newly developed forward-looking indicators of negotiated wage growth in the euro area using data on collective bargaining agreements from seven countries: Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Austria and Greece. The paper demonstrates how agreement-level data can be used to study drivers of aggregate negotiated wage growth, as well as monitor the breadth of wage increases and account for time-varying factors such as one-off payments, when assessing wage pressures. Lastly, the paper shows that the new indicators can provide reliable signals about current and future developments of wage pressures in the euro area while also serving as important cross-checking tools for negotiated wage growth forecasts.
Gόrnicka, Lucyna and Koester, Gerrit B. and Radowski, Daniel and Gautier, Erwan and Nizzi, Raffaella and Colonna, Fabrizio and Peinado, Mario Izquierdo and Volkerink, Maikel and Stiglbauer, Alfred and Antonopoulos, Christos and Wittekopf, David and Piryankov, Evgeni and Puente, Sergio and Gomez, Angel Luis and Saks, Yves and Coppens, Barbara and Duarte, Claudia and Martins, Fernando and D’Amuri, Francesco and Basso, Gaetano and Bing, Matthias and Lydon, Reamonn P and Zajankauskaitė, Justina and Pribuišis, Kristupas and Lindič, Mojca and Ploj, Gasper and Polemidiotis, Marios and Pönkä, Harri and Obstbaum, Meri and Petroulas, Pavlos and Veiga Nunes, Cindy and Doliak, Michal and Beka, Jan and Monza, Aurora and Llevadot, Marc Roca i and Polichetti, Gaetano and Benatti, Nicola and Fagandini, Bruno and Healy, Peter, A Forward-Looking Tracker of Negotiated Wages in the Euro Area (February, 2024). ECB Occasional Paper No. 2024/338, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4722142 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4722142