Survey Evidence on Wage Rigidity and Unemployment: Sweden in the 1990s

Arbeitspapier

This study reports the results from a repeat survey among managers in Swedish manufacturing, designed to explore how a severe and prolonged macroeconomic shock affects wage rigidity and unemployment. Our second survey was conducted in 1998, when the unemployment rate was much higher, and the inflation rate much lower, than when we conducted the first survey in 1991. We find no evidence that the increase in unemployment has softened the mechanisms generating wage rigidity. On the contrary, we conclude that – because of severe downward nominal wage rigidity – real wages have become more rigid during Sweden’s move to a low-inflation environment. We also report a range of new evidence on underbidding, efficiency wage mechanisms, job security legislation, workers’ wage norms, and to what extent the long-term unemployed are subject to statistical discrimination.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Working Paper ; No. 1999:12

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity ; Labor Contracts ; Labor Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs
• Subject: Unemployment ; wage rigidity ; repeat survey ; recession ; Lohnrigidität ; Arbeitslosigkeit ; Schock ; Lohnbildung ; Verarbeitendes Gewerbe

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Agell, Jonas ; Lundborg, Per
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Uppsala University, Department of Economics
• (where): Uppsala
• (when): 1999

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/82877
• URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-2455
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:41 AM CET