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Gábor Kátay
- 10 August 2016
- OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES - No. 175Details
- Abstract
- This paper revisits the empirical relationship between unemployment and output, and its evolution following the financial crisis of 2008, with the aim of drawing potential consequences for labour market modelling strategies in place within the European System of Central Banks (ESCB). First, the negative correlation between output and unemployment (Okun’s law) at cyclical frequencies is found to be a robust feature of macro data across time, countries and identification schemes. Focusing on the euro area, the financial distress seems to have altered the dynamics of output and unemployment mainly at lower frequencies, interpreted as trend developments by the statistical filters used in the analysis. Looking at the implications for modelling strategies, we propose an extension of the standard labour search and matching model in which financial frictions impinge directly on the labour market rather than on the capital market, opening the way to protracted and lagged response of employment after a “financial” crisis. In terms of policy implications, the importance of the interplay between financial and labour market frictions in trend developments should be read as strong support for an ambitious structural reform agenda in Europe, so as to make our labour (and goods) markets more flexible and resilient.
- JEL Code
- E10 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→General Aggregative Models→General
E32 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Business Fluctuations, Cycles
J64 : Labor and Demographic Economics→Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers→Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
- 22 August 2011
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 1372Details
- Abstract
- Following the approach recently developed for the International Wage Flexibility Project (IWFP), the paper presents new estimates of downward real and nominal wage rigidity for Hungary. Results suggest that nominal rigidity is more prominent in Hungary than real rigidity. When compared to other countries participating in the IWFP, Hungary ranks among the countries with the lowest degree of downward real rigidity. The estimated downward nominal rigidity for Hungary is higher, the measure is close to but still below the overall cross-country average. Using the same methodology, the paper also confirms the widespread view that the wage growth bargained at the national level has little compulsory power in Hungary. On the other hand, the minimum wage remains an important source of potential downward wage rigidity in Hungary.
- JEL Code
- C23 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Single Equation Models, Single Variables→Panel Data Models, Spatio-temporal Models
E24 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy→Employment, Unemployment, Wages, Intergenerational Income Distribution, Aggregate Human Capital
J3 : Labor and Demographic Economics→Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs
J5 : Labor and Demographic Economics→Labor?Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - Network
- Wage dynamics network
- 21 April 2010
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 1182Details
- Abstract
- This paper documents the existence and main patterns of inter-industry wage differentials across a large number of industries for 8 EU countries (Belgium, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, and Spain) at two points in time (in general 1995 and 2002) and explores possible explanations for these patterns. The analysis uses the European Structure of Earnings Survey (SES), an internationally harmonised matched employer-employee dataset, to estimate inter-industry wage differentials conditional on a rich set of employee, employer and job characteristics. After investigating the possibility that unobservable employee characteristics lie behind the conditional wage differentials, a hypothesis which cannot be accepted, the paper investigates the role of institutional, industry structure and industry performance characteristics in explaining inter-industry wage differentials. The results suggest that inter-industry wage differentials are consistent with rent sharing mechanisms and that rent sharing is more likely in industries with firm-level collective agreements and with higher collective agreement coverage.
- JEL Code
- J31 : Labor and Demographic Economics→Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs→Wage Level and Structure, Wage Differentials
J41 : Labor and Demographic Economics→Particular Labor Markets→Labor Contracts
J51 : Labor and Demographic Economics→Labor?Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining→Trade Unions: Objectives, Structure, and Effects - Network
- Wage dynamics network
- 12 November 2008
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 964Details
- Abstract
- In this paper I address the question to what extent wages are affected by product market uncertainty. Implicit contract models imply that it is Pareto optimal for risk neutral firms to provide insurance to risk averse workers against shocks. Using matched employer-employee dataset, I adopted the estimation strategy proposed by Guiso et al. (2005) to evaluate wage responses to both permanent and transitory shocks in Hungary and compared my results to similar studies on Italian and Portuguese datasets. I found that firms do insure workers against product market uncertainties, but the magnitude of the wage response differs depending on the nature of the shock. Broadly speaking, the wage response to permanent shocks is twice as high as the response to transitory shocks. Comparing my results to the two other studies, the main difference lies in the elasticity of wages to transitory shocks. Unlike these previous findings, my results show that full insurance to transitory shocks is rejected.
- JEL Code
- C33 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models, Multiple Variables→Panel Data Models, Spatio-temporal Models
D21 : Microeconomics→Production and Organizations→Firm Behavior: Theory
J33 : Labor and Demographic Economics→Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs→Compensation Packages, Payment Methods
J41 : Labor and Demographic Economics→Particular Labor Markets→Labor Contracts - Network
- Wage dynamics network