Unemployment and wage flexibility in an evolutionary setting

Abstract

We make use of an evolutionary game approach to study the relation between wage flexibility and unemployment in an economy with decentralized wage bargains. In our model, labor unions pick a nominal wage out of a finite set with cardinality in each period, while firms choose employment levels that maximize their profits. We are able to show that: 1) the economy presents multiple equilibria, some are characterized by homogeneity of nominal wages (pure strategy equilibrium) and others by heterogeneity of nominal wages (mixed strategy equilibrium); 2) the medium-run equilibrium is selected by a social learning process, given by a replicator dynamics; and 3) the selected medium-run equilibrium may not be the full employment equilibrium.

keynesian model; unemployment; evolutionary games