NOMINAL AND REAL WAGE RIGIDITIES IN NEW KEYNESIAN MODELS: A CRITICAL SURVEY

The labour market is receiving increasing attention in the New Keynesian literature. In this paper, I critically survey this literature in order to highlight the role played by wage rigidities in the explanation of fluctuations caused by technology shocks. To this aim, I present a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with sticky prices, nominal wage rigidities and hiring costs. The comparison between this model and that of Blanchard and Gali highlights the non-trivial differences which exist in the way nominal wage and real wage rigidities drive the economy's dynamics. My conclusion is that models incorporating nominal wage rigidities and some degree of price stickiness provide a better account of macroeconomic dynamics than models with real wage rigidities. Copyright © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.