Wages, work intensity and unemployment in Japan, UK and USA

Citation

Darby J, Hart RA & Vecchi M (2001) Wages, work intensity and unemployment in Japan, UK and USA. Labour Economics, 8 (2), pp. 243-258. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/09275371; https://doi.org/10.1016/S0927-5371%2801%2900028-8

Abstract
This paper looks at wage inflation in the UK, the US and Japan. We focus in particular on the impact of excess labour supply. Rather than measuring excess supply of labour purely in terms of registered unemployment, we extend the usual analysis to look at the impact of excess supply of workers within the firm. As is well known, firms may 'hoard', or under utilise, labour which effectively means that, internally, more hours are supplied than demanded at given wages. Our key conclusion is that results based on recorded unemployment rates alone seriously underestimate the flexibility of real wages.

Keywords
Unemployment; Labour Hoarding; Wage Determination; Wages Inflation (Finance) United Kingdom; Wages Inflation (Finance) United States; Wages Inflation (Finance) Japan; Labor supply; Unemployment Rates

Journal
Labour Economics: Volume 8, Issue 2