Research

Working Papers

Wage Cyclicality Across Time and Frequencies (with Srinivasan Murali)

This paper documents how the cyclicality of real wages has evolved over time and across different frequencies in the US. We use individual-level data from the CPS to construct composition bias-corrected wage series at a quarterly frequency. Utilizing continuous wavelet tools, we find that the cyclicality of wages for all the workers, as well as new hires, has increased over time, and this increase is prevalent across all the frequencies. Further, the increase in cyclicality is primarily concentrated among the workers with less than a college education. This decline in wage rigidity over the business cycle relates to broader structural changes in the labour market and has implications for the labour search framework.

Presentations: 2023: Doctoral Colloquium at MIDS, Chennai, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) Economics Area Brown Bag Seminar, 20th Macroeconomics and Finance Conference (IGIDR-Mumbai), 18th Annual Conference on Economic Growth and Development (ISI-Delhi)