[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/19293.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Real Wages, Inflation and Labour Productivity in Australia

Author

Listed:
  • Kumar, Saten
  • Webber, Don J.
  • Perry, Geoff
Abstract
This paper presents an analysis of real wages, inflation and labour productivity interrelationships using cointegration, Granger-causality and, most importantly, structural change tests. Applications of tests to Australian data over the 1965-2007 period corroborate the presence of a structural break in 1985 and show that a 1 percent increase in manufacturing sector real wages led to an increase in manufacturing sector productivity of between 0.5 and 0.8 percent. Comparable estimates for the effect of inflation on manufacturing sector productivity have limited statistical significance. Granger causality test results suggest that real wages and inflation both Granger-cause productivity in the long run.

Suggested Citation

  • Kumar, Saten & Webber, Don J. & Perry, Geoff, 2009. "Real Wages, Inflation and Labour Productivity in Australia," MPRA Paper 19293, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:19293
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/19293/1/MPRA_paper_19293.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jarrett, J Peter & Selody, Jack G, 1982. "The Productivity-Inflation Nexus in Canada, 1963-1979," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 64(3), pages 361-367, August.
    2. Adam McKissack & Jennifer Chang & Robert Ewing & Jyoti Rahman, 2008. "Structural effects of a sustained rise in the terms of trade," Treasury Working Papers 2008-01, The Treasury, Australian Government, revised Jul 2008.
    3. Olivier J. Blanchard, 1986. "The Wage Price Spiral," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(3), pages 543-565.
    4. Johansen, Soren & Juselius, Katarina, 1990. "Maximum Likelihood Estimation and Inference on Cointegration--With Applications to the Demand for Money," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 52(2), pages 169-210, May.
    5. Yannick L'horty & Christophe Rault, 2004. "Inflation, minimum wage and other wages: an econometric study on French macroeconomic data," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(4), pages 277-290.
    6. Dimitris K. Christopoulos & Efthymios G. Tsionas, 2005. "Productivity growth and inflation in Europe: Evidence from panel cointegration tests," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 30(1), pages 137-150, January.
    7. De Gregorio, Jose, 1992. "The effects of inflation on economic growth : Lessons from Latin America," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(2-3), pages 417-425, April.
    8. Hsiao, Cheng, 1982. "Autoregressive modeling and causal ordering of economic variables," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 243-259, November.
    9. Norman Cameron & Derek Hum & Wayne Simpson, 1996. "Stylized Facts and Stylized Illusions: Inflation and Productivity Revisited," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 29(1), pages 152-162, February.
    10. Andrew J. Buck & Felix Fitzroy, 1988. "Inflation and Productivity Growth in the Federal Republic of Germany," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(3), pages 428-444, March.
    11. Clark, Peter K, 1982. "Inflation and the Productivity Decline," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(2), pages 149-154, May.
    12. De Gregorio, Jose, 1992. "Economic growth in Latin America," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 59-84, July.
    13. Denny, Michael & May, Doug, 1977. "The existence of a real value-added function in the Canadian manufacturing sector," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 55-69, January.
    14. Carmem Aparecida Feijo, 1997. "Growth and Inflation in the Brazilian Industrial Sector in the 1970s: A Post Keynesian Model," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(3), pages 437-460, March.
    15. Ghali, Khalifa H, 1999. "Wage Growth and the Inflation Process: A Multivariate Cointegration Analysis," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 31(3), pages 417-431, August.
    16. Paresh Narayan & Russell Smyth, 2009. "The effect of inflation and real wages on productivity: new evidence from a panel of G7 countries," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(10), pages 1285-1291.
    17. Robert J. Gordon, 1991. "Productivity, Wages, and Prices Inside and Outside of Manufacturing in the U.S., Japan, and Europe," NBER Chapters, in: International Volatility and Economic Growth: The First Ten Years of The International Seminar on Macroeconomics, pages 153-207, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Pi-Fem Hsu, 2005. "Inter-industry wage premiums and industry-specific productivity in Taiwan," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(13), pages 1523-1533.
    19. Toni Mora & Jordi Lopez-Tamayo & Jordi Surinach, 2005. "Are wages and productivity converging simultaneously in Euro-area countries?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(17), pages 2001-2008.
    20. Gregory, Allan W. & Hansen, Bruce E., 1996. "Residual-based tests for cointegration in models with regime shifts," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 99-126, January.
    21. Efthymios Tsionas, 2003. "Inflation and Productivity: Empirical Evidence from Europe," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(1), pages 114-129, February.
    22. Lawrence F. Katz & Olivier Blanchard, 1999. "Wage Dynamics: Reconciling Theory and Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 69-74, May.
    23. Stilianos Fountas & Breda Lally & Jyh-Lin Wu, 1999. "The relationship between inflation and wage growth in the Irish economy," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(5), pages 317-321.
    24. Johansen, Soren, 1991. "Estimation and Hypothesis Testing of Cointegration Vectors in Gaussian Vector Autoregressive Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(6), pages 1551-1580, November.
    25. Bildirici, Melike & Alp, Aykaç, 2008. "The Relationship Between Wages and Productivity: TAR Unit Root and TAR Cointegration Approach," International Journal of Applied Econometrics and Quantitative Studies, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 5(1), pages 93-110.
    26. Johansen, Soren, 1988. "Statistical analysis of cointegration vectors," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 12(2-3), pages 231-254.
    27. Hall, S G, 1986. "An Application of the Granger & Engle Two-Step Estimation Procedure to United Kingdom Aggregate Wage Data," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 48(3), pages 229-239, August.
    28. Asli Gunay & Kivilcim Metin-Ozcan & Erinc Yeldan, 2005. "Real wages, profit margins and inflation in Turkish manufacturing under post-liberalization," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(16), pages 1899-1905.
    29. Efthymios Tsionas, 2003. "Inflation and Productivity in Europe: An Empirical Investigation," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 30(1), pages 39-62, March.
    30. B. Bhaskara Rao & Saten Kumar, 2009. "Cointegration, structural breaks and the demand for money in Bangladesh," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(10), pages 1277-1283.
    31. Jack Strauss & Mark E. Wohar, 2004. "The Linkage between Prices, Wages, and Labor Productivity: A Panel Study of Manufacturing Industries," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 70(4), pages 920-941, April.
    32. Mahadevan, Renuka & Asafu-Adjaye, John, 2005. "The productivity-inflation nexus: the case of the Australian mining sector," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 209-224, January.
    33. Jeremy Wakeford, 2004. "The productivity-wage relationship in South Africa: an empirical investigation," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(1), pages 109-132.
    34. Alexander, Carol O, 1993. "The Changing Relationship between Productivity, Wages and Unemployment in the UK," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 55(1), pages 87-102, February.
    35. Gordon, Robert J, 1988. "The Role of Wages in the Inflation Process," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(2), pages 276-283, May.
    36. Hondroyiannis, George & Papapetrou, Evangelia, 1998. "Temporal causality and the inflation-productivity relationship: Evidence from eight low inflation OECD countries," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 117-135.
    37. S. J. Erenburg, 1998. "Productivity, private and public capital, and real wage in the US," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(8), pages 491-495.
    38. Donald Freeman & David Yerger, 1998. "Inflation and multifactor productivity growth: a response to Smyth," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(5), pages 271-274.
    39. Donald Freeman & David Yerger, 1997. "Inflation and total factor productivity in Germany: A response to Smyth," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 133(1), pages 158-163, March.
    40. Kumar Saten, 2009. "Structural Breaks and Exports in the Philippines," Global Economy Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 9(2), pages 1-9, June.
    41. Kenneth N. Kuttner & Argia M. Sbordone, 1994. "Does inflation reduce productivity?," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 18(Nov), pages 2-14.
    42. Mehra, Yash P, 1991. "Wage Growth and the Inflation Process: An Empirical Note," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(4), pages 931-937, September.
    43. Gunnar Bårdsen & Stan Hurn & Zoë Mchugh, 2007. "Modelling Wages and Prices in Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 83(261), pages 143-158, June.
    44. Gregory, Allan W & Hansen, Bruce E, 1996. "Tests for Cointegration in Models with Regime and Trend Shifts," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 58(3), pages 555-560, August.
    45. Donald Freeman & David Yerger, 2000. "Does inflation lower productivity? Time series evidence on the impact of inflation on labor productivity in 12 OECD nations," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 28(3), pages 315-332, September.
    46. repec:bla:econom:v:64:y:1997:i:255:p:509-18 is not listed on IDEAS
    47. Renuka Mahadevan & John Asafu‐Adjaye, 2006. "Is There A Case For Low Inflation‐Induced Productivity Growth In Selected Asian Economies?," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 24(2), pages 249-261, April.
    48. Yash P. Mehra, 1993. "Unit labor costs and the price level," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue Fall, pages 35-52.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. José Abraham López Machuca & Jorge Eduardo Mendoza Cota, 2017. "Salarios, desempleo y productividad laboral en la industria manufacturera mexicana. (Wage, Unemployment and Labor Productivity in the Mexican Manufacturing Industry)," Ensayos Revista de Economia, Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon, Facultad de Economia, vol. 0(2), pages 185-228, October.
    2. Ghulam Sarwar & Muhammad Fayyaz Sheikh & Iqra Rabnawaz, 2021. "Factors Affecting Labor Productivity: An Empirical Evidence from Pakistan," Journal of Economic Impact, Science Impact Publishers, vol. 3(3), pages 221-226.
    3. Josheski, Dushko & Bardarova, Snezana, 2013. "Causal relationship between wages and prices in R. Macedonia: VECM analysis," MPRA Paper 48179, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Hansa Jain, 2019. "Wage–Productivity Relationship in Indian Manufacturing Industries: Evidences from State-level Panel Data," Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 13(3), pages 277-305, August.
    5. Vincent Dadam & Nicola Viegi, 2021. "Estimating a New Keynesian Wage Phillips Curve," Working Papers 202107, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    6. Nurliyana Mohd Basri & Zulkefly Abdul Karim & Noorasiah Sulaiman, 2020. "The Effects of Factors of Production Shocks on Labor Productivity: New Evidence Using Panel VAR Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-23, October.
    7. Sangjun Jeong, 2017. "Biased Technical Change and Economic Growth: The Case of Korea, 1970–2013," Research in Political Economy, in: Return of Marxian Macro-Dynamics in East Asia, volume 32, pages 81-103, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    8. Josheski, Dushko & Lazarov, Darko & Fotov, Risto & Koteski, Cane, 2011. "Causal relationship between wages and prices in UK: VECM analysis and Granger causality testing," MPRA Paper 34095, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Chor Foon Tang, 2014. "The effect of real wages and inflation on labour productivity in Malaysia," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(3), pages 311-322, May.
    10. Antonio Paradiso & Saten Kumar & B. Bhaskara Rao, 2013. "A New Keynesian IS curve for Australia: is it forward looking or backward looking?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(26), pages 3691-3700, September.
    11. Nir Klein, 2012. "Real Wage, Labor Productivity, and Employment Trends in South Africa: A Closer Look," IMF Working Papers 2012/092, International Monetary Fund.
    12. Tomás Gómez Rodríguez & Humberto Ríos Bolívar & Ali Aali Bujari, 2018. "Salario eficiente y crecimiento económico para el caso de América Latina. (Efficient wages and Economic Growth in Latin America)," Ensayos Revista de Economia, Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon, Facultad de Economia, vol. 0(2), pages 213-235, October.
    13. Manuel David Cruz, 2022. "Labor productivity, real wages, and employment: evidence from a panel of OECD economies over 1960-2019," Working Papers PKWP2203, Post Keynesian Economics Society (PKES).
    14. Chaido Dritsaki, 2016. "Real wages, inflation, and labor productivity: Evidences from Bulgaria and Romania," Journal of Economic and Financial Studies (JEFS), LAR Center Press, vol. 4(5), pages 24-36, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chaido Dritsaki, 2016. "Real wages, inflation, and labor productivity: Evidences from Bulgaria and Romania," Journal of Economic and Financial Studies (JEFS), LAR Center Press, vol. 4(5), pages 24-36, October.
    2. Efthymios Tsionas, 2003. "Inflation and Productivity in Europe: An Empirical Investigation," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 30(1), pages 39-62, March.
    3. Tsionas, Efthymios G., 2001. "Euro-land: any good for the European South?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 67-81, January.
    4. Dimitris K. Christopoulos & Efthymios G. Tsionas, 2005. "Productivity growth and inflation in Europe: Evidence from panel cointegration tests," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 30(1), pages 137-150, January.
    5. Chor Foon Tang, 2014. "The effect of real wages and inflation on labour productivity in Malaysia," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(3), pages 311-322, May.
    6. Anthony Enisan Akinlo & Oluwabunmi Opeyemi Adejumo, 2016. "Determinants of Total Factor Productivity Growth in Nigeria, 1970–2009," Global Business Review, International Management Institute, vol. 17(2), pages 257-270, April.
    7. Hondroyiannis, George & Papapetrou, Evangelia, 1998. "Temporal causality and the inflation-productivity relationship: Evidence from eight low inflation OECD countries," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 117-135.
    8. Tim Bulman & John Simon, 2003. "Productivity and Inflation," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp2003-10, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    9. Chen, George S. & Yao, Yao & Malizard, Julien, 2017. "Does foreign direct investment crowd in or crowd out private domestic investment in China? The effect of entry mode," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 409-419.
    10. Mahadevan, Renuka & Asafu-Adjaye, John, 2005. "The productivity-inflation nexus: the case of the Australian mining sector," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 209-224, January.
    11. Hernán Enríquez Sierra & Jacobo Campo Robledo & Antonio Avendaño Arosemena, 2015. "Relaciones regionales en los precios de vivienda nueva en Colombia," Revista Ecos de Economía, Universidad EAFIT, vol. 19(40), pages 25-47, June.
    12. Kühl, Michael, 2007. "Cointegration in the foreign exchange market and market efficiency since the introduction of the Euro: Evidence based on bivariate cointegration analyses," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 68, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    13. Campos, Julia & Ericsson, Neil R. & Hendry, David F., 1996. "Cointegration tests in the presence of structural breaks," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 187-220, January.
    14. Nidhaleddine Ben Cheikh & Christophe Rault, 2016. "Recent estimates of exchange rate pass-through to import prices in the euro area," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 152(1), pages 69-105, February.
    15. Lucey, Brian M. & Voronkova, Svitlana, 2005. "Russian equity market linkages before and after the 1998 crisis : evidence from time-varying and stochastic cointegration tests," BOFIT Discussion Papers 12/2005, Bank of Finland, Institute for Economies in Transition.
    16. Sogiakas, Vasilios & Karathanassis, George, 2015. "Informational efficiency and spurious spillover effects between spot and derivatives markets," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 46-72.
    17. Kühl, Michael, 2010. "Bivariate cointegration of major exchange rates, cross-market efficiency and the introduction of the Euro," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 1-19, January.
    18. Inoue, Atsushi, 1999. "Tests of cointegrating rank with a trend-break," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 215-237, June.
    19. Francisco de Castro & José M. González-Páramo & Pablo Hernández de Cos, 2001. "Evaluating the dynamics of fiscal policy in Spain: patterns of interdependence and consistency of public expenditure and revenues," Working Papers 0103, Banco de España.
    20. Sadorsky, Perry, 2000. "The empirical relationship between energy futures prices and exchange rates," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 253-266, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Labour productivity; Real wages; Inflation; Cointegration; Granger causality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C50 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - General
    • E23 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Production

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:19293. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.