Is a Conservative Central Banker a (Perfect) Substitute for Wage Coordination?

In a monetary union, macroeconomic policies are strongly associated with externalities that imply the need for coordination. However, if coordination is not complete, it might be unable to cope with the externalities. This paper investigates different solutions for internalizing policy externalities. In particular, we compare wage coordination to the conservative central banker solution, which the recent literature has found able to impose wage moderation on labor unions. We also discuss some issues related to labor flexibility reforms as a solution for the unemployment problem. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2004