Year: 1996
Type: report
Abstract: Building on earlier work by Eichengreen and Sachs, we use data for 22 countries to study the role of wage stickiness in propagating the Great Depression. Recent research suggests that monetary shocks, transmitted internationally by the gold standard, were a major cause of the Depression. Accordingly, we use money supplies and other aggregate demand shifters as instruments to identify aggregate supply relationships. We find that nominal wages adjusted quite slowly to falling prices, and that the resulting increases in real wages depressed output. These findings leave open the question of why wages were so inertial in the face of extreme labor market conditions.
DOI: 10.3386/w5439
Authors: Ben Bernanke, Kevin Carey
Language: English
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2015783933