Real wage cyclicality in the Eurozone before and during the Great Recession: Evidence from micro data

A real wage rate is a nominal wage rate divided by the price of a good and is a transparent measure of how much of the good an hour of work buys. It provides an important indicator of the living standards of workers, and also of the productivity of workers. In this paper I set out the conceptual basis for such measures, provide some historical examples, and then provide my own preliminary analysis of a decade long project designed to measure the wages of workers doing the same job in over 60 countries—workers at McDonald's restaurants. The results demonstrate that the wage rates of workers using the same skills and doing the same jobs differ by as much as 10 to 1, and that these gaps declined over the period 2000–2007, but with much less progress since the Great Recession. (JEL C81, C82, D24, J31, N30, O57)

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Tracking the Pandemic in Real Time: Administrative Micro Data in Business Cycles Enters the Spotlight

The Journal of Economic Perspectives ◽

10.1257/jep.35.3.47 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 35 (3) ◽

pp. 47-66

Author(s):

Joseph Vavra

Keyword(s):

Business Cycles ◽

Real Time ◽

Administrative Data ◽

Great Recession ◽

Crucial Role ◽

Micro Data ◽

The Great Recession

In this paper I discuss the increasingly prominent role of administrative micro data in macroeconomics research. This type of data proved important for interpreting the causes and consequences of the Great Recession, and it has played a crucial role in shaping economists’ understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic in near real-time. I discuss a number of specific insights from this research while also illustrating some of the broader opportunities and challenges of working with administrative data.

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The Recovery from the Great Recession: A Long, Evolving Expansion

The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science ◽

10.1177/00027162211022305 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 695 (1) ◽

pp. 28-48

Author(s):

Jay C. Shambaugh ◽

Michael R. Strain

Keyword(s):

Labor Markets ◽

Great Recession ◽

Real Wage ◽

Wage Growth ◽

The United States ◽

The Great Recession ◽

Annual Basis ◽

The Great Depression ◽

United States Economy ◽

The Business Cycle

Prior to 2020, the Great Recession was the most important macroeconomic shock to the United States’ economy in generations. Millions lost jobs and homes. At its peak, one in ten workers who wanted a job could not find one. On an annual basis, the economy contracted by more than it had since the Great Depression. A slow and steady recovery followed the Great Recession’s official end in summer 2009, but because it was slow and the depth of the recession so deep, it took years to reduce slack in labor markets. But because the recovery lasted so long, many pre-recession peaks were exceeded, and eventually real wage growth accumulated for workers across the distribution. In fact, the business cycle (including recession and recovery) beginning in December 2007 was one of the better periods of real wage growth in many decades, with the bulk of that coming in the last years of the recovery.

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