Authors

• Miguel Casares (mcasares@unavarra.es)
  Departamento de Economía, Universidad Pública de Navarra
• Antonio Moreno (antmoreno@unav.es)
  Departamento de Economía, Universidad de Navarra
• Jesús Vázquez (jesus.vasquez@ehu.es)
  Departamento de Fundamentos del Análisis Económico II, Universidad del País Vasco

Abstract
Erceg, Henderson and Levin (2000, Journal of Monetary Economics) introduce sticky wages in a New-Keynesian general-equilibrium model. Alternatively, it is shown here how wage stickiness may bring unemployment fluctuations into a New-Keynesian model. Using Bayesian econometric techniques, both models are estimated with U.S. quarterly data of the Great Moderation. Estimation results are similar and provide a good empirical fit, with the crucial difference that our proposal delivers unemployment fluctuations. Thus, second-moment statistics of U.S. unemployment are replicated reasonably well in our proposed New-Keynesian model with sticky wages. In the welfare analysis, the cost of cyclical fluctuations during the Great Moderation is estimated at 0.60% of steady-state consumption.

Classification JEL:C32, E30

Keywords:Wage Rigidity, Price Rigidity, Unemployment

Number of Pages:37

Creation Date:2009-08-13

Number:null/09