Abstract
The literature on causality as well as the empirical
evidence clearly shows that there are two opposing groups of economists,
who support different hypotheses with respect to the flow of causality in
the price-wage causal relationship. The first group argues that causality
runs from wages to price, whereas the second argue that effect flows from
prices to wages. Nonetheless, there is at least some consensus that
researchers conclusions may be contingent on the type of data employed,
applied econometric model, or even that the relationship may vary
through economic cycles. This paper empirically examines the pricewage
causal relationship in EMU, by using OLS and VECM analysis, and
also it provides robust evidence in support of a bilateral causal
relationship between prices and wages, both in long-run as well as in the
short-run. Prior to designing and estimating the econometric model we
have performed stationarity tests for the employed price, wage and
productivity variables. Additionally, we have also specified the model
taking into account the lag order as well as the rank of co-integration for
the co-integrated variables. Furthermore, we have also applied
respective restrictions on the parameters of the estimated VECM and
finally model robustness checks indicate that results are statistically
robust. Although far from closing the issue of causality between prices
and variables, this paper at least provides some fresh evidence for the
case of EMU.
Citation
ID:
221341
Ref Key:
hoxha2010theoreticalcausality