Wage contracts, policy regimes, and business cycles. A contractual history of Sweden 1908-1990

Abstract: The monograph explores: 1) the determinants of length, degree of indexation, degree of synchronization and coverage of collective agreements across monetary regimes in Sweden 1908 to 1990, 2) the effect of these determinants on the business cycles as described by length and correlations of macroeconomic variables. The first part synthesizes and extends the teory of endogenous wage contracts. The study comfirms the theory of endogenous wage contracting, first presented by Jo Anna Gray in 1976, and by implication the importance of the Lucas critique of standard macroeconomic modelling.