Wage rigidity and unemployment: a comment on Kohn^*

Rigidez salarial e desemprego: um comentário sobre Kohn

ABSTRACT

This paper examines loanable fund models with a stabilized interest rate, in which the banking system bridges the gap between the flow of demand and the provision of funds. A typical Mickselian model is developed to emphasize the importance of credit and inflation (deflation) in closing the gap between savings and investment. Substituting the nominal interest rate for the real - an appropriate modification in a model whose inflation is relevant - and using the Robertsonian definition of income, we realize that, depending on the reaction of ‘lacking’ and investment to inflation, there is the possibility of the system become unstable. By introducing unemployment into the system, we realize that investment is more sensitive than the lack of inflation, the greater the degree of wage flexibility, the greater the level of unemployment balance, in the face of the demand shock, and the greater the chances of macroeconomic instability. Finally, we demonstrate that if we replace the Robertsonian definition of income with Keynesian, investment becomes more sensitive to inflation, making wage rigidity necessarily a good deal.

KEYWORDS:
Wage rigidity; unemployment; macroeconomic equilibrium