Wage Determination And Incomes Policy In Open Economies

Written by Anne Romanis Braun, a former staff member of the IMF's Research Department, this volume deals with the nature of wage determination and the problem of securing an economically appropriate development of money incomes in an open economy over the medium term.

This book looks at how developing countries have had increasing difficulties, especially since the 1970s, in coping with inflation, in balancing efficiency and equity in wage policies, and in achieving economic growth and income distribution through appropriate taxation and expenditure programmes.

Reviews the history of wage determination in each country since the early 1980s and considers the past and future role of incomes policy.

This volume seeks to go beyond the microeconomic view of wages as a cost having negative consequences on a given firm, to consider the positive macroeconomic dynamics associated with wages as a major component of aggregate demand.

The authors present a new treatment of macroeconomics. Its key characteristic is the use of wage bargaining and price-setting under imperfect competition, making product and labour market assumptions closer to the real world.