Real wage rigidity and the new Phillips curve: The Brazilian case

Abstract

The new Keynesian Phillips curve has been criticized for not explaining the short-run inflation-output gap trade-off. Blanchard and Galí (2007) introduced real wage rigidity and derived a trade-off between stabilizing inflation and the gap between actual and efficient output. This paper estimates the new Phillips curve for the Brazilian economy, computes short-run trade-off, analyzes real wage rigidity, and tests theoretical restrictions imposed by the model. The GMM estimations fit the data very well and all theoretical restrictions are satisfied. There is strong real wage rigidity and a high output-gap cost to stabilize inflation in the short run.