The wage curve introduced by Blanchflower and Oswald (1990, 1994) postulates a negative correlation between wages and unemployment. Empirical results focus on particular theoretical channels establishing the relationship. Panel models mostly draw on unionized bargaining or the efficiency wage hypothesis. Spatial econometric approaches can be rationalized by monopsonistic competition. However, the approaches either ignore the issue of nonstationarity or treat the data as if it were nonspatial. In this paper, we adopt a global cointegration approach recently proposed by Bienstock and Felsenstein (2010) to account for nonstationarity of regional data. By specifying a spatial error correction model (SpECM), equilibrium adjustments are considered in both space and time. Applying the methodology for West German labour markets, we find strong evidence for the existence of a long-run wage curve with spatial effects.
We use cookies to provide you with an optimal website experience. This includes cookies that are necessary for the operation of the site as well as cookies that are only used for anonymous statistical purposes, for comfort settings or to display personalized content. You can decide for yourself which categories you want to allow. Please note that based on your settings, you may not be able to use all of the site's functions.
Cookie settings
These necessary cookies are required to activate the core functionality of the website. An opt-out from these technologies is not available.
In order to further improve our offer and our website, we collect anonymous data for statistics and analyses. With the help of these cookies we can, for example, determine the number of visitors and the effect of certain pages on our website and optimize our content.