Wages and employment in a repeated game with revenue fluctuations

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Empirical investigations suggests that the real wage is surprisingly flat over the business cycle. This paper analyses a repeated game between a union and a firm which can contribute to explaining the flat wage. The parties cannot enter binding contracts, and revenue is fluctuating. The paper focuses on the best subgame-perfect equilibrium among those sharing the expected surplus in given fixed shares - e.g. equal shares. It is shown that (for moderate discount factors) this equilibrium has a more counter-cyclical wage, than what would be the case if the parties shared the surplus in each period in the same shares
Original languageEnglish
JournalEuropean Economic Review
Volume41
Issue number1
Pages (from-to)147-162
ISSN0014-2921
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1997

ID: 155833