Macroeconomic dynamics in a model with heterogeneous wage contracts

Abstract

In the present paper, we constructed a DSGE model with two types of workers with heterogeneous wage contracts, unionized and non-unionized wages, to investigate macroeconomic dynamics and welfare implications. The innovative feature of this paper is to examine direct substitution effects between workers with both types of wage contracts by introducing firms that jointly employ them. It is revealed that the macroeconomic volatility and welfare loss to asymmetric labor productivity shock increased and decreased with the elasticity of substitution between two types of workers and labor unions' bargaining power, respectively. Furthermore, those of monetary policy shock increased with labor unions' bargaining power, which implies that better monetary policy design is more important when unions are more influential.