摘要：Systematic differences in the timing of wage setting decisions among
industrialized countries provide an ideal framework to study the importance of
wage rigidity in the transmission of monetary policy. The Japanese Shunto
presents the most well-known case of bunching in wage setting decisions: From
February to May, most firms set wages that remain in place until the following
year; wage rigidity, thus, is relatively higher immediately after the Shunto.
Similarly, in the United States, a large fraction of firms adjust wages in the
last quarter of the calendar year. In contrast, wage agreements in Germany are
well-spread within the year, implying a relatively uniform degree of rigidity.
We exploit variation in the timing of wagesetting decisions within the year in
Japan, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and France to investigate
the effects of monetary policy under different degrees of effective wage
rigidity. Our findings lend support to the long-held, though scarcely tested,
view that wage-rigidity plays a key role in the transmission of monetary policy.
