By considering a standard game between the Government and a centralised trade union, we investigate the robustness of the claim that corporatism has a positive effect on macroeconomic performance. We test this claim with respect to different kinds of non-co-operative equilibria, model...

The main aim of this article is to investigate the sources of non-neutrality in policy games involving one or more trade unions. We use a simple set up in order to clearly expose the basic mechanisms that also work in more complex frameworks. We show that there are common roots in the...

By using the recent Gertler and Kiyotaki's (2010) setup, this paper explores the interaction between real distortions stemming from the labor market institutions and financial shocks. We find that neither labor market imperfections nor fiscal institutions determining tax wedges have an impact on...

We challenge the widely held belief that New Keynesian models cannot predict an optimal positive inflation rate. In fact we find that even for the US economy, characterized by relatively small government size, optimal trend inflation is justified by the Phelps argument that the inflation tax...

We challenge the widely held belief that New-Keynesian models cannot predict optimal positive in‡ ations. We finnd that these are justified by the Phelps argument. This mainly happens because we also consider distortionary expects of public transfers. Our predictions are broadly consistent...

Recent developments in macroeconomics resurrect the view that wel- fare costs of inflation arise because the latter acts as a tax on money balances. Empirical contributions show that wage re-negotiations take place while expiring contracts are still in place. Bringing these seemingly unrelated...

The main aim of this article is to investigate the sources of money non-neutrality in policy games involving one or more trade unions in simple analytical settings. We show that there are common roots in the non-neutrality results so far obtained in apparently different contexts.

European countries have progressively integrated from the point of view of trade and investment and have a common currency now. By contrast, labour market and fiscal institutions have largely retained their national status. The aim of this paper is threefold. First, the effects of trade union...