货币联盟中的衰退期工资弹性

We examine how wage flexibility affects the transmission of economic shocks within a monetary union using a two-agent New Keynesian small open economy model. We show that, in the presence of financially constrained households, greater wage flexibility can amplify shocks rather than mitigate them. This amplification arises through an income channel that dominates the standard expenditure-switching mechanism when price flexibility is limited. The critical threshold of price flexibility required to offset this effect depends on the economy’s trade openness and the share of constrained households, but not on wage flexibility itself. These findings challenge the conventional view that wage flexibility inherently enhances macroeconomic stability within a monetary union.