An Empirical Study on the New Keynesian Wage Phillips Curve: Japan and the US

Muto, Ichiro and Shintani, Kohei (2014): An Empirical Study on the New Keynesian Wage Phillips Curve: Japan and the US.

Abstract

We present an empirical analysis on the New Keynesian Wage Phillips Curve (NKWPC), which is derived by Gali (2011) as a micro-founded structural relationship between wage inflation and the unemployment rate under a sticky wage framework using data for Japan and the US. We find that the empirical fit of the NKWPC is generally superior for Japan. We also find that the slope of the NKWPC is much steeper in Japan than in the US. These results suggest that wages are less sticky in Japan than in the US. Inflation indexation plays a key role in the US, but is less important in Japan. Rolling estimations indicate that the NKWPC has flattened over time in Japan. Analysis of recent data indicates that in both countries the role of inflation indexation is quantitatively smaller than before, although this result might be influenced by low and stable inflation rates over the past few decades.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Wage; Unemployment rate: New Keynesian model; Phillips curve
• Subjects: E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E2 - Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy > E24 - Employment ; Unemployment ; Wages ; Intergenerational Income Distribution ; Aggregate Human Capital ; Aggregate Labor Productivity; E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E3 - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles > E31 - Price Level ; Inflation ; Deflation; E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E3 - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles > E32 - Business Fluctuations ; Cycles

References

Muto, Ichiro (2009), "Estimating a New Keynesian Phillips curve with a corrected measure of real marginal cost: evidence in Japan," Economic Inquiry, 47(4), pp. 667-684.