قیمت، دستمزد و واکنش بازار اشتغال به تلاطم: شواهد های حاصل از بررسی

We analyse the relative intensity and character of price vs. cost and wage vs. employment firm-level adjustment to cost-push shocks in the European System of Central Banks Wage Dynamics Network (WDN) survey data set. The results document several statistically significant and theoretically sensible relationships: price increases are less likely when product market competition is more intense, and more likely when collective wage agreements or employment protection legislation constrain firm-level reactions. We discuss how changes of such structural and institutional features of firms and of their environment may underlie the evolution of macroeconomic adjustment mechanisms in Europe.

The distribution of shocks across prices, wages, and employment reactions is an essential element of microeconomic and macroeconomic adjustment. At the microeconomic level, reactions to market-originated shocks are shaped by structural features and by institutional constraints. In the labour market, collective bargaining privileges wage stability, and employment protection legislation aims at stabilising employment. Stable wages and stable employment are beneficial for uninsured workers, but labour market rigidity constrains labour (re)allocation reducing productivity and profits (see e.g. Bertola, 1999). Administrative and survey data are analysed from relevant perspectives by Guiso et al. (2005), Leonardi and Pica (2007), Cardoso and Portela (2009), and others. At the macroeconomic level, labour market rigidity prevents wage and employment changes from absorbing the impact of cost shocks, and makes it more difficult for monetary policy to achieve price stability as contractually pre-set wages anticipate future price increases. If labour markets are heavily regulated and weak product market competition endows firms with significant price-setting power, then (in the absence of appropriate economy-wide wage-setting coordination) energy prices and other supply shocks can easily trigger wage-price inflationary spirals.

Empirical evidence from the WDN survey highlights several theoretically sensible features of price, wage and employment reactions to changes in the economic environment for numerous European countries. Firms that report facing strong competition in the product market or export much of their production are less likely to increase prices, and more likely to reduce costs after a wage shock (stated in the survey question to be common to all firms in the industry). The presence of collective wage agreements at industry or national level makes a price increase more likely. The data also suggest that price increases are more likely where employment protection legislation is more stringent. When reducing costs, firms operating in a highly competitive environment are less likely to reduce non-labour costs and more likely to reduce labour costs. The latter is less likely to be accomplished by wage reductions when firms are subject to labour contracts signed at higher bargaining levels, which induce firms to react to cost shocks by reducing employment and especially temporary employment, in particular when permanent employees are protected from dismissal.