REAL AND MONEY WAGES, OUTPUT AND INFLATION IN THE SEMIINDUSTRIALIZED WORLD

Recent structuralist ideas about real and money wages are reviewed, addressing six areas. These involve the reaction output to wage increases in a closed economy; the roles of wage and wealth movements in macro-adjustment if output is at an upper bound; whether wage cuts stimulate employment; the respective effects of wage reductions and devaluation on output in an open economy; the roles of wage reduction and monetary restraint on inflation, and the effects of wage dynamics on stabilisation programmes based on de-indexation and wage freezes. Institutional factors suggest that wage-cutting may be counterproductive in semi-industrialised countries. -after Author