演講摘要 : This paper models the firm as a community a la Akerlof (1980) to account for asymmetric behavior, and in particular, downward rigidity of wages. It is shown that, through social interaction among workers in the firm community, wage cuts can give rise to a large, discontinuous fall in labor
productivity (known as “catastrophe”). Furthermore, this large fall in labor productivity will persist or display inertia (known as “hysteresis”) even if the wages are restored to the pre-cut level. The catastrophe and hysteresis finding with respect to wage cuts is consistent with the nterview evidence of fragile worker morale emphasized by Bewley (1999) and others in explaining why employers are sensitive to and refrain from cutting worker pay. It is also shown that such worries about large falls in labor productivity will never impose themselves upon employers when there are wage raises. This explains why wages behave asymmetrically. Last but not least, we explore why nominal rather than real wage rigidity occurs when shocks are not idiosyncratic but instead shifts in the general price level.
