The Wage Inflation-Unemployment Curve at the Macroeconomic Level

Based on the reduced form New Keynesian Wage Phillips Curve, we estimate wage rigidity and indexation at the aggregate level in several advanced countries for the 1985-2014 period. We document that the wage setting process is heterogenous among our sample of countries: nominal wage rigidities are more important in the United States, while wage indexation is dominant in European Countries. We also present evidence that indexation to past inflation has decrease as inflation stabilizes at lower levels. In addition, our results suggest that wage rigidity is not linked to the institutional environment at the macroeconomic level. Finally, we show that there is significant time variation in the estimated coefficients on the implied equation that is usually not taken into account in the theoretical literature.