Higher Real Wages Research Articles

The relationship between bank lending and economic factors in the regions of Kazakhstan

Understanding the impact of economic factors on bank lending is crucial in Kazakhstan’s modern economy, characterized by volatile inflation and fluctuations in real wages. This paper aims to investigate the link between bank lending and economic factors such as inflation, real wages, and consumer expenditure in a regional context. Data from the Bureau of National Statistics and the National Bank, covering the period from 2012 to 2022, were used to uncover how economic factors influence bank lending. For the analysis, various economic indicators were integrated through normalization and averaging. Analysis reveals significant regional disparities in real wages and consumer expenditures, which impact the demand for bank credit. The results of the correlation matrix showed that both real wages (P-value < 0.001) and inflation (P-value < 0.001) significantly impact bank lending, with an R² value of 0.998, indicating that the model explains 99.8% of the variation in bank lending. The regression analysis highlights that regions with higher real wages, such as Astana, Almaty, and Atyrau, provide the most favorable conditions for banking sector growth, demonstrated by a strong relationship between wages and bank lending. In contrast, regions with lower wage levels, such as Turkestan and Zhambyl, show a significantly weaker connection (around 0.65), reflecting their lower attractiveness for banking investment and emphasizing the need for policies to address social inequality. The Durbin-Watson test confirmed no autocorrelation in residuals (DW = 1.89), although heteroscedasticity was detected, suggesting the need for further model adjustments. The study emphasizes the importance of developing economic policies that can balance regional development and improve financial stability. AcknowledgmentsThis research has been funded by the Science Committee of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Grant “Development of mechanisms for reducing social inequality and improving the welfare of the population of Kazakhstan” AP19174744).

Aggregate Implications of Barriers to Female Entrepreneurship

We develop a framework for quantifying barriers to labor force participation (LFP) and entrepreneurship faced by women in India. We find substantial barriers to LFP, and higher costs of expanding businesses through hiring workers for women entrepreneurs. However, there is one area where female entrepreneurs have an advantage: the hiring of female workers. We show that this is not driven by the sectoral composition of female employment. Consistent with this pattern, policies promoting female entrepreneurship can significantly increase female LFP even without explicitly targeting female LFP. Counterfactual simulations indicate that removing all excess barriers faced by women entrepreneurs would substantially increase the fraction of female‐owned firms, female LFP, earnings, and generate substantial gains for the economy. These gains are due to higher LFP, higher real wages and profits, and reallocation: low productivity male‐owned firms previously sheltered from female competition are replaced by higher productivity female‐owned firms previously excluded from the economy.

Labor Productivity, Real Wages, and Employment in OECD Economies

This work investigates the relationship between labor productivity (LP), real wage (RW), and employment (EMP). The paper's main goal is to test competing theories of growth and income distribution. Standard theory predicts that RW should increase following increases in LP. Alternative theories and efficiency wage theories suggest that the distribution causes changes in LP. Theory delivers ambiguous predictions regarding the ultimate effects on EMP, which can be either negative if factor substitution prevails or positive if higher RW and LP generate additional aggregate demand and, therefore, EMP. I study a panel of 25 OECD economies by performing single and multi-equation approaches. My first key result is a positive two-way association between LP and RW, supporting the induced technical change and efficiency wages theories over the marginal productivity theory. My second relevant finding is that EMP is weakly exogenous, suggesting that OECD countries have been labor-constrained for the period under analysis.

Does Emigration Hurt the Economy? Evidence from Lithuania


 
 
 This study explores the economic impact of population emigration with special reference to the case of Lithuania. For this reason, we developed a SVAR model and applied related IRF and FEVD tools using quarterly data for the period of 2001-2020. Our findings reveal that a positive shock in emigration is related to lower unemployment. It is also found that the increased emigration is linked to higher real wage growth but with a lower confidence interval. Moreover, our estimates suggest that international out-migration increases real GDP growth in the short term, with no significant effects in the long run perspective. Finally, we found that most of the emigrants-to-be were inactive for a long term prior to departure, which offers a new look into the consequences of Lithuanian emigration, suggesting that the economic losses of emigration could be overstated. This study contributes to the knowledge about the impact of emigration on the economy and specifies directions for further studies in the field.
 
 

Value, Price and Profit

Value Price and Profit was a speech delivered by Marx at a meeting of the First International where he used ideas of his not-yet-published Capital to present what later came to be known as the “w-r-frontier”. He argued on its basis, against the position of John Stuart Mill, that workers as a whole can obtain higher real wages at the expense of the capitalists’ rate of profit. The relationship between economic and political struggles outlined in Value, Price and Profit is a novel one: the weakening of working-class capacity to intervene at the economic level is supposed to bring on the agenda greater political struggles. This novel reading of the relationship between the economic and the political also has much relevance for today’s world.

The Compensation Hypothesis Revisited and Reversed

This note describes how research on the link between economic openness and government size has changed over time. Early interpretations suggested that countries develop welfare states to compensate for volatility caused by economic openness (the compensation hypothesis). Recent findings have cast doubts on this interpretation. For example, more open economies are on average not more volatile, and economic openness does not unambiguously increase the social security demands from voters. Some recent studies suggest that economic openness is particularly beneficial for countries with high taxes and high‐income equality. A re‐interpretation of the compensation hypothesis is thus possible: Through trade, the citizens in large welfare states enjoy some of the benefits associated with cheap labour and high wage dispersion despite their domestic economy being characterized by high real wages, high taxes and a compressed wage distribution.

Interest rates, income distribution and the monetary policy transmissions mechanism under endogenous money: what have we learned 30 years on from Horizontalists and Verticalists?

This paper suggests that the near-optimal setting of the real policy rate of interest (the real overnight rate in Basil Moore's home country of Canada) is zero. This will achieve as close an approximation as possible to a fair distribution of income in a particular sense. It will also promote financial stability, inflation stability, high growth, full employment and higher real wages.

Samuelson’s Neoclassical Synthesis Did Not Betray Keynes: Keynes Had Offered Just Such a Synthesis in the General Theory, As Well As to Hicks and Harrod in Correspondence, in 1936

In a recent reprint of material taken from R. E. A. Farmer’s recent 2017 book, Prosperity for All, certain misrepresentations of Paul Samuelson’s work and J M Keynes’s work is presented. For example, in the presence of a high unemployment rate, following a severe recession or depression, Samuelson’s prescription is the use of expansionary fiscal policy that involves large government deficits to finance major public works, public goods, and public infrastructure spending to replace the large gap resulting from the collapse in private investment spending. This will increase p, the general price level, while reducing the real wage, w/p. This will result in an increase in employment and a fall in the unemployment. The unemployment rate will start to move back toward the full employment target rate of 4 %. The problem is not that money wages are too high, but that, due to decreased private corporate investment spending, spending on investment goods is too low, so that the overall price level is too high, resulting in a higher than optimal real wage. This higher real wage is misinterpreted as being due to money wages that are too high, while, in reality, it is due to insufficient spending on investment goods that is too low. J M Keynes, in December 1933, invented and taught the IS-LM(LP) model. An inferior version of it was developed by Keynes and appeared in the mid 1934 draft copy of the General Theory. An improved, revised version of it was presented in the General Theory in chapter 15 and chapter 21 on pp.298-299 in 1936. The aggregate price level was not determined in Keynes’s IS-LM(LP) model. It is determined by Keynes in a separate, supporting model, which Keynes called his D-Z model, which appeared in chapters 20 and 21. Keynes developed the Aggregate Supply Curve (ASC) in aggregate Income-employment (D, Y, Z; N) space. This ASC represents a locus of all multiple equilibrium, optimal D=Z outcomes, all of which satisfy the necessary and sufficient first and second order conditions for an expected profit maximum. The first order conditions are that the expected real wage equals the marginal product of labor. Keynes presented two simplified versions of his ASC on pp.295-296 of the General Theory, which has the familiar completely horizontal, completely elastic, range of the standard textbook aggregate supply curve in (O,P) space where O=a function of N, and PO equals aggregate income. PO is Keynes’s Y; pO, expected aggregate income, is Keynes’s D. N is aggregate employment. Both Keynes and Samuelson realized that Frisch’s reconstituted version of K. Wicksell’s rocking horse (pendulum) model could only involve negative feedback. It does not, and could not, involve the positive feedback effects resulting from the interaction of the multiplier and accelerator models, first presented by Keynes in his correspondence with Harrod in August, 1938, in discussions over his economic growth model using a first order, difference equation, and simultaneously presented by Samuelson in 1939-1941 by the use of difference equations. Microeconomic optimizing approaches, (individual, rational utility maximizing and profit maximizing problems) based on pendulum models, which have purely negative feedback effects that are self-correcting over time, have no explanatory significance or policy application at the macro level. All that it is possible to say at the macro level is that the dynamic equilibriums are either stable or unstable. It is impossible to conclude that they are optimal or non-optimal in terms of aggregate employment or aggregate “output”.

Geography and Demography: New Economic Geography With Endogenous Fertility

To explain the links between demographics and economic integration, we construct a new economic geography model with endogenous fertility. Labour mobility across regions results in more people flowing into highly populated regions, but lowers fertility rates there. Finally, regions are divided into one very large region with a higher real wage and another small region with a lower real wage, a higher fertility rate and a supply of workers to the large region. The population growth path resembles a logistic curve in the early phase, but population decreases in the last phase. Economic integration leads to population concentration and decreases population size.

Ajit Singh (1940–2015), the Radical Cambridge Economist: Anti‐imperialist Advocate of Third World Industrialization

Ajit Singh (1940–2015), the Radical Cambridge Economist: Anti‐imperialist Advocate of Third World Industrialization

Why do newer cities promise higher wages in Russia?

This paper documents the negative relationship between the age of cities and their average wages in Russia and a number of post-Soviet countries. To determine age-related urban characteristics responsible for this relationship, we develop a spatial equilibrium model as a framework to guide the interpretation of the regression estimates. Higher real wages in newer cities reflect both their disadvantages as places for living and their production advantages. The latter are related to their production amenities, higher shares of skilled workers, and more available natural resources. These advantages and disadvantages tend to disappear over time, which gives rise to income convergence.

Fast Rises, Slow Declines: Asymmetric Unemployment Dynamics with Matching Frictions

This paper argues that the canonical search-and-matching model cannot generate the observed cyclical asymmetry of the unemployment rate. In the United States, the unemployment rate raises quickly and abruptly at the onset of contractions and declines slowly and gradually during expansions. This pattern produces positive skewness in the distribution of unemployment rate changes, while the model produces a counterfactually negative skewness. The key feature of the model responsible for this counterfactual prediction is the convexity of hiring costs in aggregate employment, which leads to excessive responsiveness of job vacancies to positive shocks in periods of high unemployment. I argue that the inability of the model to replicate the cyclical asymmetry in the data stands regardless of its ability to generate realistic fluctuations in unemployment. Furthermore, high replacement rates and real wage rigidity (both fixed and downward rigid wages) - commonly used to enhance amplification of shocks - do not resolve the puzzle, rather they make it worse.

Dutch Disease or Agglomeration? The Local Economic Effects of Natural Resource Booms in Modern America

Do natural resources benefit producer economies, or is there a “Natural Resource Curse”, perhaps as the crowd-out of manufacturing productivity spillovers reduces long-term growth? We combine new data on oil and gas endowments with Census of Manufactures microdata to estimate how oil and gas booms affect local economies in the U.S. Local wages rise during oil and gas booms, but manufacturing is not crowded out—in fact, the sector grows overall, driven by upstream and locally-traded subsectors. Tradable manufacturing subsectors do contract during resource booms, but their productivity is unaffected, so there is no evidence of foregone local learning-by-doing effects. Over the full 1969–2014 sample, a county with one standard deviation additional oil and gas endowment averaged about 1% higher real wages. Overall, the results provide evidence against a Natural Resource Curse within the U.S.

Evidence of the Impacts of Minimum Wages on Labor Market Outcomes: The Case of Bolivia

Economic theory suggests that minimum wages may lead to unemployment; nevertheless, empirical evidence in developed economies stays ambiguous. Evidence from developing countries is even more heterogenous due to the low law enforcement and weaker labor market institutions. Thus, our aim is to assess the impact of minimum wage increases on labor market outcomes in Bolivia, a country characterized by weak law compliance and high informality. Our identification strategy exploits differences in exposure to minimum wage increases across subsets of population for the period 2006-2013. Our results show positive and significant effects over real wages for men with no effects on employment, informalization or hours worked. Furthermore, we find evidence of gender discrimination since women are prone to suffer unemployment and informalization while not benefiting from higher real wages as men do.

Calibrating Wage-Productivity Responses in CGE Model Simulations of Trade Policy Impacts

It is well established in theory that trade liberalization impacts on productivity through the reallocation of market share to more productive firms. Since more productive firms tend to pay higher wages, the market reallocation effect also increases average wages. In addition to these intra-sectoral effects, changes in the composition of output at the economy-wide level result in reallocation of factors of production to higher-productivity sectors. At the same time, the positive demand shock from trade liberalization typically generates increased returns to factors, and thus results in higher real wages for labour. For these various reasons, we anticipate a positive relationship between changes in productivity and changes in real wages in response to trade liberalization. This is consistent with the observed long-run relationship across countries and over time between wages and productivity and is also consistent with the theoretical expectation that labour is paid its marginal product. In a computable general equilibrium modelling environment, various methods have been developed to build in productivity effects from trade liberalization. There is little guidance however as to how strong these effects should be. We propose an elegant solution to the calibration problem by imposing a unitary elasticity of the supply of labour input to the wage rate. This generates an endowment effect, interpreted as labour productivity rather than jobs, that rises proportionately with wages. This approach to endogenization of productivity in a CGE environment thus uses the model-generated contribution of factor inputs to production and the stylized facts about the relationship between wage and productivity growth to calibrate the productivity impact of trade liberalization.

European growth models and working class restructuring: An International post-Keynesian Political Economy perspective

This paper builds on post-Keynesian macroeconomics, the French Regulation Theory and a Neo-Gramscian International Political Economy approach to class analysis to propose an International post-Keynesian Political Economy approach that is used to offer an empirical analysis of European growth models and working class restructuring in Europe between 2000 and 2008. We will distinguish between the ‘East’, the ‘North’ and the ‘South’ and structure our analysis around industrial upgrading, financialisation and working class coherence. We find an export-driven growth model in the North, which came with wage suppression and outsourcing to the East. In the East, the growth model can be characterised as dependent upgrading, which allowed for high real wage growth despite declining working class coherence. The South experienced a debt-driven growth model with a real estate bubble and high inflation rates resulting in large current account deficits. Our analysis shows that class restructuring forms an integral part in the economic process that resulted in European imbalances and the Euro crisis.

VOTING ONESELF INTO A CRISIS

We suggest that voters' lack of recognition of complex economic links may give rise to economic policies that eventually lead to a crisis. We consider a two-sector economy in which a majoritarian political process determines governmental regulation in one sector: a minimum nominal wage. If voters recognize general equilibrium feedbacks, workers favoring market-clearing wages will form a majority across sectors. If voters take into account only direct effects in the regulated sector, not only workers that enjoy minimum wages but also workers in the other sector are willing to vote for wage rises in each period. The reason is that they expect higher real wages for themselves, too. The political process leads to constantly rising unemployment and tax rates. The resulting crisis may trigger new insights into economic relationships on the part of the voters and may reverse bad times.

Poland's Labour Market Adjustment in Times of Economic Slowdown WDN3 Survey Results

This paper presents the results of a survey carried out in Poland in 2014 among nearly 1500 firms, within the framework of the ECB’s Wage Dynamics Network (WDN). It aims at assessing the impact of the global economic and financial crisis on firms’ business activity, as well as analysing the way the labour market adjusted to the slowdown and the role institutional reforms played at that time. According to our analysis, the absence of real recession, together with a rapid response of wages at the beginning of the slowdown translated into a relatively mild reduction of employment and a moderate unemployment increase. The shocks in 2009 and 2012 were comparable in terms of their scale. In both cases a drop in demand gradually spilled over to lower customers’ ability to pay and to higher uncertainty. However, the shocks hit completely different parts of the economy. While the first shock was observed mainly in export-driven enterprises (industry), the second one was observed mostly in domestic market oriented companies (construction). Moreover, firms in Poland did not experience any additional, major credit constraints during the global financial crisis. The results confirm a relatively high real and nominal wage flexibility and a limited impact of labour market reforms in the period 2009-2013.

Productivity – your countries need you!

Increased global productivity could boost real wages, consumption, fiscal positions and alleviate fears of secular stagnation. But will it? Puzzles relate to the longer term global slowdown and to some countries' recent productivity‐less recoveries in jobs. We assess various explanations including mismeasurement, secular stagnation, financial sector malfunction and increased labour market flexibility. Our baseline forecast is for a moderate pro‐cyclical recovery in productivity but we show how downside risks imply it could be anaemic. Sustained weak productivity is a secular issue. Eight years after 2007, median productivity growth in OECD economies is less than Japan's was eight years into its lost decade. Aspects of secular stagnation and balance sheet adjustment have contributed. Measurement error may have played a role over the longer term. Recent experience divides recoveries into “haves” and “have nots” in terms of productivity and employment. The UK may finally be emerging from a “productivity‐less” recovery in employment after 2011; Spain and the Netherlands have experienced jobless recoveries in productivity; others, such as Canada and Sweden, have experienced pro‐cyclical (typically weak) recoveries in productivity; Italy hardly got going in either direction. Most theories provide, at best, a limited explanation for recent weak productivity performance. These include data mis‐measurement, increased labour market flexibility, financial sector malfunction and supply side secular stagnation. On balance, we think that a modest productivity bounce‐back could be imminent, caused by some demand recovery, tighter labour markets in major economies, higher real wages and firms deciding to invest more in capital, which enhances productivity and points the global economy towards normality. We also illustrate how global risk scenarios could dampen recovery. Negative skews imply mean G7 productivity growth across the scenarios would be an anaemic 1.1% in 2016, 0.5 percentage points (pp) lower than the baseline.

A New Approach for the General Equilibrium Analysis: Increase of the Output with Monetary and Fiscal Boosts

The purpose of this paper is to present an approach with regard to the dynamic process of the general equilibrium during the business cycle fluctuations following monetary and fiscal interventions, which, I think, could contribute to bridging the differences between the different schools of mainstream economics, that have been minimized but still remain following the long debates and controversies between the Classicals, Neoclassicals, Keynesians, New Keynesians, Monetarists, RBC (Real Business Cycle) economists and the recent DSGE (Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium) economists. Further to the presentation of a new principle and mechanism associated with the dynamic process of the general equilibrium through a series of temporary equilibria following monetary and fiscal interventions, the fundamental outcomes of this approach are the following: After a monetary or fiscal expansion there will always be a temporary increase in the production and employment, even if information is perfect and expectations are rational. Furthermore, this temporary increase in production would occur, even if the labor market was absolutely flexible and happened to clear temporarily with higher real wage rates than the original one. Moreover, in the case of a permanent fiscal expansion, e.g. a permanent increase of the annual government expenditures, there will be not only a temporary short-term increase in the production and employment, but furthermore a permanent long-term one, regardless of the evolution and the eventual level of the real wage (higher or lower than the original one). On the contrary a fixed long-term production reflecting a fixed full employment level underlies the conventional theory, unless a long-run growth of production takes place due to long-run growth of the labor force, capital stock, productivity or due to technology improvement etc.