Indexation Rules, Risk Aversion, and Imperfect Information

Nominal wage adjustment is modeled as resulting from bargaining between a risk neutral …rm and a risk averse worker, in an environment where the rate of in‡ation is a random variable. Risk aversion makes for endogenous indexation arrangements, which deliver partial indexation as they exploit imperfect in‡ation indices; risk aversion also generates a positive correlation between indexation and in‡ation variance. The model suggests a distinction between complete vs incomplete in‡ation adjustment on the one hand, and perfect vs imperfect adjustment on the other hand.