Sticky Prices or Sticky Wages? An Equivalence Result
Florin Bilbiie, Mathias Trabandt
Review of Economics and Statistics,
forthcoming
Abstract
We show an equivalence result in the standard representative agent New Keynesian model after demand, wage markup and correlated price markup and TFP shocks: assuming sticky prices and flexible wages yields identical allocations for GDP, consumption, labor, inflation and interest rates to the opposite case- flexible prices and sticky wages. This equivalence result arises if the price and wage Phillips curves' slopes are identical and generalizes to any pair of price and wage Phillips curve slopes such that their sum and product are identical. Nevertheless, the cyclical implications for profits and wages are substantially different. We discuss how the equivalence breaks when these factor-distributional implications matter for aggregate allocations, e.g. in New Keynesian models with heterogeneous agents, endogenous firm entry, and non-constant returns to scale in production. Lastly, we point to an econometric identification problem raised by our equivalence result and discuss possible solutions thereof.
Read article
Cross-Subsidization of Bad Credit in a Lending Crisis
Nikolaos Artavanis, Brian Lee, Stavros Panageas, Margarita Tsoutsoura
Review of Financial Studies,
No. 5,
2025
Abstract
We study the corporate-loan pricing decisions of a major, systemic bank during the Greek financial crisis. A unique aspect of our data set is that we observe both the actual interest rate and the “break-even rate” (BE rate) of each loan, as computed by the bank’s own loan-pricing department (in effect, the loan’s marginal cost). We document that low-BE-rate (safer) borrowers are charged significant markups, whereas high-BE-rate (riskier) borrowers are charged smaller and even negative markups. We rationalize this de facto cross-subsidization through the lens of a dynamic model featuring depressed collateral values, impaired capital-market access, and limit pricing.
Read article
Media Response
Media Response January 2026 IWH: Verzicht auf vorläufige Daten in: Die Glocke Oelde, 14.01.2026 IWH: Zu unreif für die Wahrheit: Wie der Staat Deutschlands Insolvenzzahlen…
See page
Wirtschaft im Wandel
Wirtschaft im Wandel Die Zeitschrift „Wirtschaft im Wandel“ unterrichtet die breite Öffentlichkeit über aktuelle Themen der Wirtschaftsforschung. Sie stellt wirtschaftspolitisch…
See page
Research Articles
Research Articles Explore cutting-edge research based on CompNet’s micro-aggregated firm-level data and related analytical tools. These articles cover empirical and theoretical…
See page
Centre for Business and Productivity Dynamics
Centre for Business and Productivity Dynamics (IWH-CBPD) The Centre for Business and Productivity Dynamics (CBPD) was founded in January 2025 and works with policy and research…
See page
Job Market Candidates
Job Market Candidates Marius Fourné Marius Fourné is a PhD candidate in Economics at the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) and Martin Luther University of…
See page
Research Clusters
Three Research Clusters Each IWH research group is assigned to a topic-oriented research cluster. The clusters are not separate organisational units, but rather bundle the…
See page
Department Profiles
Research Profiles of the IWH Departments All doctoral students are allocated to one of the four research departments (Financial Markets – Laws, Regulations and Factor Markets –…
See page
Alumni
Alumni IWH provides guidance and support in job placement after graduation, including letters of recommendation and career advice. Graduates have found placements in academia…
See page
