TY  - JOUR
AU  - Blanchflower,David G.
AU  - Oswald,Andrew J.
TI  - Estimating a Wage Curve for Britain 1973-1990
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 4770
PY  - 1995
Y2  - February 1995
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w4770
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w4770.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
David G. Blanchflower
Bruce V. Rauner Professor of Economics
6106 Rockefeller Hall
Dartmouth College
Hanover, NH  03755-3514
Tel: 603/646-2536
Fax: 603/646-2122
E-Mail: David.G.Blanchflower@Dartmouth.EDU

Andrew Oswald
Department of Economics
University of Warwick
Coventry CV4 7AL
England
Tel: 44-01203-5235
Fax: 44-01203-5230
E-Mail: a.j.oswald@warwick.ac.uk
AB  - Following Phillip's original work on the UK, applied research on unemployment and wages has been dominated by the analysis of highly aggregated time-series data sets.  However, it has proved difficult with such methods to uncover statistically reliable models.  This paper adopts a different approach.  It uses microeconomic data on 175,000 British workers from 1973-1990 to provide evidence for the existence of a negatively sloped relationship linking the level of pay to the local rate of unemployment.  This 'wage curve' is found to have an elasticity of approximately -0.1.  Contrary to the Phillips Curve, no autoregression is found in wages.  The paper casts doubt on standard ideas in macroeconomics, regional economics and labour economics.
ER  -