What Happens When Wages Are Set Above The Equilibrium Level By Law?

What Happens When Wages Are Set Above The Equilibrium Level By Law
A minimum wage is a government imposed regulation that makes it illegal to charge (or pay) a wage rate lower than a specified level. If the minimum wage is set above the equilibrium wage, it creates a surplus of labor—unemployment—and decreases workers’ and firms’ surplus.

What happens when wage is above equilibrium?

ECON 390 – Labor Market Equilibrium

ECON 390 – Labor Economics
Labor Market Equilibrium
(sources: various, common knowledge)
Market Equilibrium

If wages are below the equilibrium level, there is a shortage of labor and wages get bid up; if wages are above the equilibrium level, there is a surplus and wages get bid down. We move along both the labor supply and labor demand curves,

Graph:
What about shifts?
Supply : In a single occupation, labor supply responds to changes in expected ways. Example:

1. What happens to supply of orange-pickers if a new strain of poisonous fruit fly appears – or there are bad freezes in California? Demand : Shifts in labor demand are trickier, because you have to consider both the product market and the labor market.

One worker essentially has no effect on product price.
So if one worker grows more productive, he gets paid proportionally more (or so the theory goes).
But if all workers in an industry get more productive, matters are more complex.
Example: Suppose all orange workers get faster.
In the product market, this means that the supply of oranges increases, so the price falls,

But in the labor market, does labor demand rise or fall? It all depends on demand elasticity in the product market, If the demand curve is relatively flat (elastic), then when the quantity supplied of oranges rises a lot, the price of oranges only falls a little.

Remember: MVP = MPP x P
So MPP is increasing, P is falling, but only a little, so overall change is positive.
Graphs:

But if the demand curve is relatively steep (inelastic), then when the quantity of oranges rises a lot, the price of oranges drastically falls. Thus, MVP falls and labor demand falls!

MVP = MPP x P
In this case MPP is increasing, but the price decrease offsets it and then some, so overall change is negative.
Graphs:

There are definitely cases where all-around increases in worker productivity have actually hurt workers in that industry, Agriculture is the most prominent example. There are other cases where an occupation has grown substantially due to rises in worker productivity.

Computers are probably a good example. As supply increased in the product market – it lead to an increase in the demand for labor in that industry. Market Equilibrium and Wages/Employment Aggregate Labor Supply is determined by workers’ labor/leisure trade-offs. Aggregate Labor Demand is determined by workers’ productivity.

So what determines average wages and employment? If the wage is below the intersection of ALS and ALD, employers want to hire more workers than are willing to work. They accordingly bid up the wage. Graph: If the wage is above the intersection of ALS and ALD, more workers are willing to work than employers want.

Workers bid down the real wage. Graph: At the intersection of (Aggregate Labor Supply) ALS and ALD (Aggregate Labor Demand), the quantity of labor hours employers desire to buy and the quantity of labor hours employees desire to sell are equal. So what happens if.1. Workers get stronger? 2. Someone invents a new productive technique? 3.

Someone invents the dishwasher? 4. A new law bans the use of some machinery? 5. Workers slack off more on the job?

At this point – there are no legal restrictions or regulations.
Application: Multinational corporations and Third World Labor
Using what we’ve learned, what can we say about low wages in the Third World?

1. How about: on average, workers are much more productive in the rich countries than in the poor countries. Of course, this may be more the fault of bad economic policies than individual workers.2. What can we say about bad working conditions? How about: when people are poor, they are more willing to trade-off fun for income? 3.

When a minimum wage is set above the equilibrium wage rate ______________?

If the minimum wage is set above the equilibrium wage rate, what happens? the quantity of labour supplied by workers exceeds the quantity demanded by employers & there is a surplus of labour.

How does an increase in wages affect equilibrium?

Key Takeaways –

Wages in a competitive market are determined by demand and supply.
An increase in demand or a reduction in supply will increase the equilibrium wage. A reduction in demand or an increase in supply will reduce the equilibrium wage.
The government may respond to low wages for some workers by imposing the minimum wage, by attempting to increase the demand for those workers, or by subsidizing the wages of workers whose incomes fall below a certain level.

What happens when the minimum wage is set below the equilibrium wage?

A minimum wage set below equilibrium has no effect on the market. It does not create excess demand or excess supply. The imposition of a minimum wage rate is not significant to the market because employers normally hire workers at the equilibrium wage rate.

What happens when wages are too high?

When setting the level of the minimum wage, policy makers should take into account economic factors. If the minimum wage is set too high or increased too much, this may have unexpectedly large impacts on the labour costs that employers must pay. This, in turn, could trigger price inflation, hurt exports, and reduce the level of employment.

Wages that are too low, by contrast, constrain domestic household consumption.
According to ILO Convention No.131, economic factors to take into account include, “the requirement of economic development, levels of productivity, and the desirability of attaining and maintaining a high level of employment”.

Other economic factors that can be considered include issues related to competitiveness, investment, prices, and economic growth.1

What happens when minimum wage is set above the equilibrium price of similar jobs?

Answer and Explanation: When the government sets the minimum wage above the equilibrium wage, it creates unemployment in the market. Besides, the higher minimum wage will create a disparity between the labor demanded and labor supplied.

What does it mean to be above equilibrium price?

Equilibrium Price Equilibrium – a state of rest; state of balance; a position which, if attained, will be maintained. Thus, an equilibrium price is one which, if attained in the market, will be maintained (until some disturbing factor causes a change in demand or supply conditions).

Note: equilibrium is a positive (as opposed to normative) economic concept. There is nothing inherently good or bad about equilibrium. It has nothing to with fairness. Equilibrium exists whenever the quantity of a good demanded is just equal to the quantity of the good supplied. (Note: it is NOT when supply equals demand it is when a point on the demand curve just touches a point on the supply curve.) If the price of a good is above equilibrium, this means that the quantity of the good supplied exceeds the quantity of the good demanded.

There is a surplus of the good on the market. The existence of this surplus gives sellers an incentive to lower their price, thus sending the price downward toward its equilibrium level. Conversely, if the price of a good is below equilibrium, then it must be that the quantity of the good demanded exceeds the quantity of the good suppliedmeaning that there is a shortage of the good (at the existing price).

The existence of this shortage in the market gives sellers the incentive (and the opportunity) to raise their price.
As the price rises, it is moving upward toward equilibrium.
Whenever the quantity of a good demanded at some price is just equal to the quantity of the good that sellers are supplying at that price, then there is neither a surplus of the good nor a shortage.

Sellers lack incentive and opportunity to either lower or raise the priceit will be maintained. It is an equilibrium price. Be able to illustrate graphically a below-equilibrium price, to explain what condition (relative to supply and demand-using proper terminology) exists to make this a non-equilibrium price, and explain and illustrate the adjustment process.

How do higher wages impact inflation?

Conclusion – While economists traditionally worry about a wage-price spiral, there remains no evidence that wages are causing increases in inflation. Workers need pay raises after decades of stagnation, and simply put, wages and employment do not—and should not—have to decline to bring down inflation.

The nature of the U.S. economic system is such that any negative change in the economy is almost always going to hurt low-income people the most. Yet most of the people who say inflation needs to be addressed because it is hurting poor households only propose to address it by enacting policies that would disproportionately hurt those same poor households.

The solution instead should be to continue using fiscal policy to focus support to struggling households, improve the economy’s productive capacity, create more resilient supply chains, and limit the profiteering of those at the top at the expense of everyone else.

Corporations must invest more in their long-term sustainability through improved supply chain capabilities and conditions for workers rather than short-term profiteering.
America must not choose the continued enrichment of a few over the well-being and economic advancement of the vast majority of workers and their families.

The authors would like to thank Christian E. Weller, Seth Hanlon, David Madland, Arohi Pathak, and Lily Roberts for their helpful feedback; Suzanne Harms for her assistance with research; and Kyle Ross and Emily DiMatteo for fact-checking.

What happens when government sets minimum wage?

The Imposition of a Minimum Wage – When the government imposes a minimum wage, firms are not permitted to pay less than the amount that the government mandates. Suppose we are again in the base year, so the price level is 1. Imagine that the market equilibrium wage is $4 per hour, but the government now passes legislation stating that all firms must pay at least $5 per hour. With a minimum wage of $5, the supply of labor is 50,000 hours, but firms demand only 32,000 hours of labor, so the labor market is not in equilibrium. Markets are based on voluntary trades. In Figure 10.6 “Labor Market with a Minimum Wage”, we see that sellers (the workers who supply labor) would like to sell 50,000 hours of labor to the market at the set minimum wage—that is, 250 more people would like to have a 40-hour-a-week job when the wage increases from $4 to $5.

But firms wish to purchase only 32,000 hours of labor—firms want to hire 200 fewer workers (8,000 fewer hours). In a market with voluntary trade, no one can force firms to hire workers. As a result, the equilibrium quantity of labor traded in the market will be determined by how much the firms wish to buy, not how much workers want to sell.

We can now answer our first motivating question of the chapter: what is the consequence of imposing a minimum wage? Two things happen when the government imposes a minimum wage:

The amount of labor hired in the market decreases. In our example, the number of unskilled workers employed decreases from 1,000 to 800. Thus while those who have jobs earn a higher wage, there are now some individuals who no longer have jobs. Employment has decreased.
At the government-imposed wage, there are more people who want to work than are able to find jobs. Thus the minimum wage has created unemployment. Because 1,250 people would like jobs at a wage of $5 but only 800 jobs are available, 450 people are unemployed; they would like a job at the prevailing wage, but they are unable to find one.

The number of unemployed workers is 450, even though employment decreased by only 200 workers. The difference comes from the fact that the higher wage also means that more people want to work than before. In this case, the higher wage means 250 more people would like a job.

We have assumed in this discussion that everyone works for 40 hours, in which case the number of people employed must decrease by 200. Another possibility is that everyone who wants a job is able to get one, but the number of hours worked by each individual decreases. Because there are 32,000 hours of work demanded and 1,250 people who want jobs, each worker would work 25.6 hours a week.

In this situation, we say that there is underemployment rather than unemployment. Yet another possibility is that, after the introduction of the minimum wage, the number of people employed stays the same as before (1,000), but those individuals are allowed to work only 32 hours per week.

What happens if a company’s wages and benefits are too high?

Believe it or not, it’s entirely possible to pay employees too much money. Even in this economy, it happens. It happens when employee performance consistently fails to meet expectation yet raises continue; when employees stay in entry- to mid-level positions too long; when employees reach their level of incompetence (i.e., The Peter Principle ) yet aren’t developed or moved along; and when employees are paid too much to begin with, as a result of a weak or nonexistent wage administration policy.

Related: You Need a Wage Administration Program, Seriously But, other than the unwarranted drain on your company’s cash flow, is this really a problem? Oh yes, indeed. Paying employees too much harms the overpaid employee, the employees around them, and your organization. Here’s how. Too Much Pay Stifles Employee Development Some overpaid employees will become complacent as a result.

They won’t seek alternative opportunities for advancement within your company, and they won’t pursue more challenging work that would stretch and improve their skills. Simply put, they don’t have to. Unfortunately, this lack of development creates its own vicious cycle.

The more time the employee remains unmotivated to grow, the less marketable he becomes, and the more likely he is to stay in your company without giving you your money’s worth. Too Much Pay Spreads Resources Too Thin Cash is finite, and profits tend to come in cycles. When you overspend in one area, it’s likely to have an effect elsewhere.

Overpaying one (or two, or twenty) employees, especially when compounded over time, can significantly compromise your ability to reward other employees properly. And that can lead to low morale and bad turnover. In the extreme, bloated wages could even affect your ability to adequately staff all areas or invest in innovation.

Too Much Pay Leads to Talent “Bottlenecks” Paying employees significantly over market, such that they could never go anywhere else and make the same salary, creates a talent “bottleneck” in your organization, because the overpaid employees are working in jobs that could be available to junior employees who would work for less and, once bought up to speed, could produce as well.

And, ironically, some employees will be far from grateful for their “golden handcuffs.” In fact, those who would like to advance but feel trapped by their pay may resent the organization and become disengaged. As a result, they’ll be less productive, less cooperative, and overall less of a good investment than they could be.

What is the possible effect of too high minimum wages?

FAQS – EFFECTS ON EMPLOYMENT How would increasing the minimum wage affect employment? Raising the minimum wage would increase the cost of employing low-wage workers. As a result, some employers would employ fewer workers than they would have under a lower minimum wage.

However, for certain workers or in some circumstances, employment could increase.
Changes in employment would be seen in the number of jobless, not just unemployed, workers.
Jobless workers include those who have dropped out of the labor force (for example, because they believe no jobs are available for them) as well as those who are searching for work.

How did CBO estimate effects on employment? In CBO’s analysis, the size of the effects depends on the number of workers affected by the increase in the minimum wage, the changes in wages induced by the higher minimum, and the responsiveness of employment to those changes in wages.

Effects would generally be greater if the minimum-wage change affected more workers, if it led to larger mandated increases for directly affected workers, if firms had more time to respond (for example, because the change was phased in over a longer period), and if the minimum wage was indexed to inflation or wage growth.

For details of CBO’s analysis, see Appendix A of CBO’s July 2019 report The Effects on Employment and Family Income of Increasing the Federal Minimum Wage, Although CBO’s economic and budget projections have changed since that analysis was completed, CBO has not adjusted its methods for estimating how employment would respond to a higher minimum wage.

That is partly because CBO projects that employment will be near the level that it was at in the baseline projections underlying the 2019 report. If workers lost their jobs because of a minimum-wage increase, how long would they stay jobless? At one extreme, an increase in the minimum wage could put a small group of workers out of work indefinitely so that they never benefited from higher wages.

At the other extreme, a large group of workers might shuffle regularly in and out of employment, experiencing short spells of joblessness but receiving higher wages during the weeks they were employed. In analyzing the effects of joblessness on poverty, CBO used its estimates of the distribution of durations of unemployment for the 2000–2020 period to assign directly affected workers either no joblessness or a duration of joblessness within the projection year that was randomly chosen from that distribution.

Thus, some workers in CBO’s analysis are out of work for nearly an entire year, whereas others are jobless for shorter—sometimes much shorter—periods.
EFFECTS ON INCOME How would increasing the minimum wage affect family income? By boosting the income of low-wage workers who have jobs, a higher minimum wage would raise their families’ real income (that is, income adjusted to remove the effects of inflation), lifting some of those families out of poverty.

However, income would fall for some families because other workers would not be employed and because business owners would have to absorb at least some of the higher costs of labor. For those reasons, a minimum-wage increase would cause a net reduction in average family income.

How did CBO estimate the effects on family income? CBO projected the distribution of family income in future years and then combined those forecasts with estimates of the effects on wage rates, employment, business income, and prices.
Effects on wage rates include increases in the wages of workers who would have earned slightly more than the proposed minimum wage in the absence of the policy.

Losses in business owners’ income and consumers’ purchasing power would be partly offset by an increase in the productivity of workers who received higher wages. That increase in productivity might occur through various channels, such as a reduction in employee turnover.

(For details, see The Effects on Employment and Family Income of Increasing the Federal Minimum Wage,) How would increasing the minimum wage affect the number of people in poverty? By boosting the income of low-wage workers with jobs, a higher minimum wage would lift some families’ income above the poverty threshold and thereby reduce the number of people in poverty.

But low-wage workers who lost employment would see their earnings decrease, and in some cases their family income would fall below the poverty threshold. The first effect would tend to be larger than the second, so the number of people in poverty would generally fall.

What happens if wages rise faster than productivity?

If wages grow faster than labour productivity, then prices rise and if wages grow slower than productivity then prices fall.

What happens to price and quantity when wages increase?

Baumol, William J., and Alan S. Blinder. Economics: Principles and Policy, 7th ed, Orlando, FL: The Dryden Press, 1997, pp.628-642. THE AGGREGATE SUPPLY CURVE In earlier chapters we noted that aggregate demand is a schedule, not a fixed number. The quantity of real GDP that will be demanded depends on the price level, as summarized in the economy’s aggregate demand curve.

Analogously, the concept of aggregate supply does not refer to a fixed number, but rather to a schedule (a supply curve).
The volume of goods and services that profit-seeking enterprises will provide depends on the prices they obtain for their outputs, on wages and other production costs, on the state of technology, and on other things.

The relationship between the price level and the quantity of real GDP supplied, holding all other determinants of quantity supplied constant, is called the economy’s aggregate supply curve. A typical aggregate supply curve is drawn in Figure 27-1, It slopes upward, meaning that as prices rise more output is produced, other things held constant.

It is not difficult to understand why.
Producers in the U.S.
Economy are motivated mainly by profit.
The profit made by producing a unit of output is simply the difference between the price at which it is sold and the unit cost of production: Profit per unit = Price – Cost per unit So, the response of output to a rising price level-which is what the slope of the aggregate supply curve shows-depends on the response of costs.

Many of the prices that firms pay for labor and other inputs are relatively fixed for periods of time-though certainly not forever. Often, workers and firms enter into long-term labor contracts that set money wages up to 3 years in advance. Even where there are no explicit contracts, wage rates typically adjust only once a year.

During the interim period, money wages are fixed.
Similarly, a variety of material inputs are delivered to firms under long-term contracts at prearranged prices.
Why is it significant that firms often purchase inputs at prices that stay fixed for considerable periods of time? Because firms decide how much to produce by comparing their selling prices with their costs of production; and production costs depend, among other things, on input prices.

If the selling prices of the firm’s products rise while its wages and other factor costs are fixed, production becomes more profitable, and firms will presumably increase output. A simple example will illustrate the idea. Suppose a firm uses I hour of labor to manufacture a gadget that sells for $9.

If workers earn $8 per hour, and the firm has no other production costs, its profit per unit is: Profit per unit = Price – Cost per unit = $9 – $8 = $1 Now what happens if the price of a gadget rises to $10, but wage rates remain constant? The firm’s profit per unit becomes: Profit per unit = Price – Cost per unit = $10 – $8 = $2 With production more profitable, the firm will likely supply more gadgets.

The same process operates in reverse. If selling prices fall while input costs are relatively fixed, profit margins will be squeezed and production cut back. This behavior is summarized by the upward slope of the aggregate supply curve: Production rises when the price level (henceforth, P) rises, and falls when P falls.

In other words: The aggregate supply curve slopes upward because firms normally can purchase labor and other inputs at prices which are fixed for some period of time. Thus, higher selling prices for output make production more attractive.1 The phrase “for some period of time” alerts us to an important fact: The aggregate supply curve may not stand still for long.

If wages or prices of other inputs change, as they surely will during inflationary times, then the aggregate supply curve will shift. SHIFTS OF THE AGGREGATE SUPPLY CURVE We have concluded so far that, for given levels of wages and other input prices, there will be an upward-sloping aggregate supply curve relating the price level to aggregate quantity supplied.

Now let us consider what happens when these input prices change. THE MONEY WAGE RATE The most obvious determinant of the position of the aggregate supply curve is the money wage rate. Wages are the major element of cost in the economy, accounting for more than 70 percent of all inputs. Since higher wage rates mean higher costs, they spell lower profits at any given prices.

That is why companies like American Airlines and Caterpillar have staged fierce battles with their unions in recent years in an effort to reduce wages. Returning to our example, consider what would happen to a gadget producer if the money wage rose to $8.75 per hour while the price of a gadget remained $9.

Profit per unit would decline from: $9 – $8 = $1 to $9.00 – $8.75 = $0.25 With profits squeezed, the firm would probably cut back on production.
This is the way firms in our economy typically react to a rise in wages.
Therefore, a wage increase leads to a decrease in aggregate quantity supplied at current prices.

Graphically, the aggregate supply curve shifts to the left (or inward), as shown in Figure 27-2, In this diagram, firms are willing to supply $6,000 billion in goods and services at a price level of 100 when wages are low (point A). But after wages increase these same firms are willing to supply only $5,500 billion at this price level (point B).

By similar reasoning, the aggregate supply curve will shift to the right (or outward) if wages fall. Thus: A rise in the money wage rate makes the aggregate supply curve shift inward, meaning that the quantity supplied at any price level declines. A fall in the money wage rate makes the aggregate supply curve shift outward, meaning that the quantity supplied at any price level increases.

PRICES OF OTHER INPUTS In this regard, there is nothing special about wages. An increase in the price of any input that firms buy will shift the aggregate supply curve in the same way; that is: The aggregate supply curve is shifted inward by an increase in the price of any input to the production process, and it is shifted outward by any decrease.

While there are many inputs other than labor, the one that has attracted the most attention in recent decades is energy. Increases in the price of energy, such as those that took place in the early 1980s and again during the 1990 Gulf war, push the aggregate supply curve inward more or less as shown in Figure 27-2,

By the same token, a rise in the price of any input we import from abroad would have the effect shown in the figure. TECHNOLOGY AND PRODUCTIVITY Another factor that determines the position of the aggregate supply curve is the state of technology. Suppose, for example, that a technological breakthrough increases the productivity of labor, that is, output per hour of work.

If wages do not change, such an improvement in productivity will decrease business costs, improve profitability, and encourage more production. Once again, our gadget company will help us understand how this works. Suppose the price of a gadget stays at $9 and the hourly wage rate stays at $8, but gadget workers become much more productive.

Specifically, suppose the labor input required to manufacture a gadget falls from 1 hour (which costs $8) to three-quarters of an hour (which costs $6). Then profit per unit rises from $9 – $8 = $1 to $9 – $6 = $3 The lure of higher profits should induce gadget manufacturers to increase production-which is, of course, why manufacturers are constantly striving to raise productivity.

In brief, we have concluded that: Improvements in productivity shift the aggregate supply curve outward.
Figure 27-2 can therefore be viewed as applying to a decline in productivity.
Since the 1970s, slow growth of productivity has been a persistent problem for the U.S.
Economy, one that we will examine in depth in Chapter 37.

AVAILABLE SUPPLIES OF LABOR AND CAPITAL The last determinant of the position of the aggregate supply curve is obvious. The bigger the economy-as measured by its available supplies of labor and capital-the more it is capable of producing. So: As the labor force grows or improves in quality, and as the capital stock is increased by investment, the aggregate supply curve shifts outward to the right, meaning that more output can be produced at any given price level.

This last aspect of the aggregate supply curve is central to the political debate over alternative supply-side strategies. Although neither party excludes the other factor of production, Republicans tend to concentrate on augmenting the supply of capital while Democrats tend to emphasize improvements in labor quality.

These, then, are the major “other things” that we hold constant when drawing up an aggregate supply curve: wage rates, prices of other inputs (such as energy), technology, labor force, and capital stock. While a change in the price level moves the economy along a given supply curve, a change in any of the other determinants of aggregate quantity supplied shifts the entire supply schedule.

EQUILIBRIUM OF AGGREGATE DEMAND AND SUPPLY Chapter 25 taught us that the price level is a crucial determinant of whether equilibrium GDP is below full employment (a “recessionary gap”), precisely at full employment, or above full employment (an “inflationary gap”). We are now in a position to analyze which type of gap, if any, will actually occur in any particular case.

By combining the analysis of aggregate supply just completed with the analysis of aggregate demand from the last two chapters, we can determine simultaneously the equilibrium level of real GDP (Y) and the equilibrium price level (P). Figure 27-3 displays the mechanics.

Aggregate demand curve DD and aggregate supply curve SS intersect at point E, where real GDP is $6,000 billion and the price level is 100.
As can be seen in the graph, at any higher price level, such as 120, aggregate quantity supplied would exceed aggregate quantity demanded.
There would be a glut on the market as firms found themselves unable to sell all their output.

As inventories piled up, firms would compete more vigorously for the available customers, thereby forcing prices down. Both the price level and production would fall. At any price level lower than 100, such as 80, quantity demanded would exceed quantity supplied.

There would be a shortage of goods on the market. With inventories disappearing and customers knocking on their doors, firms would be encouraged to raise prices. The price level would rise, and so would output. Only when the price level is 100 are the quantities of real GDP demanded and supplied equal.

Therefore, only the combination of P = 100, Y = $6,000 is an equilibrium. Table 27-1 illustrates the same conclusion in another way, using a tabular analysis similar to that of Chapter 25 (refer back to Table 25-2, page 597). Columns 1 and 2 constitute an aggregate demand schedule corresponding to the aggregate demand curve DD in Figure 27-3,

Columns 1 and 3 constitute an aggregate sup. ply schedule corresponding exactly to aggregate supply curve SS in the figure. It is clear from the table that equilibrium occurs only at P = 100 and Y = $6,000. At any other price level, aggregate quantities supplied and demanded would be unequal, with consequent upward or downward pressure on prices.

For example, at a price level of 90, customers demand $6,200 billion worth of goods and services, but firms wish to provide only $5,800 billion. The price level is too low and will be forced upward. Conversely, at a price level of, say, 110, quantity supplied ($6,200 billion) exceeds quantity demanded ($5,800 billion), implying that the price level must fall.

RECESSIONARY AND INFLATIONARY GAPS REVISITED Let us now reconsider a question we posed, but could not answer, in Chapter 25: Will equilibrium occur at, below, or beyond full employment? We could not give a complete answer to this question in Chapter 25 because we had no way to determine the equilibrium price level, and therefore no way to tell which type of gap, if any, would arise.

The aggregate supply and demand analysis summarized in Figure 27-3 now gives us what we need. But we fir that our answer is the same as it was in Chapter 25-anything can happen. The reason is that nothing in Figure 27-3 tells us where full employment is; could be above the $6,000 billion equilibrium level or below it.

Depending ( the locations of the aggregate demand and aggregate supply curves, then, v can reach equilibrium above full employment (an inflationary gap), at fl employment, or below full employment (a recessionary gap). In the short run with wages and other input costs fixed, that is all there is to it.

All three possibilities are illustrated in Figure 27-4, The three upper panels a familiar from Chapter 25. As we move from left to right, the expenditure schedule rises from C + Io + G + (X – IM) to C +I1 + G + (X – IM) to C + I2 + G + (X – IM), leading respectively to a recessionary gap, an equilibrium at full employment, and an inflationary gap.

In fact, the upper left-hand diagram looks just like Figure 25-6 (page 601), and the upper right-hand diagram duplicates Figure 25-7 (page 602). We emphasized in Chapter 25 that any one of the three cases is possible, depending on the price level and the expenditure schedule. In the three lower panels, the equilibrium price level is determined at poi E by the intersection of the aggregate supply curve (SS) and the aggregate demand curve (DD).

But the same three possibilities emerge. In the lower left-hand panel, aggregate demand is too low to provide jobs f the entire labor force, so there is a recessionary gap equal to distance EB, $1,000 billion. This corresponds precisely to the situation depicted on the income expenditure diagram immediately above it.

In the lower right-hand panel, aggregate demand is so high that the economy reaches an equilibrium well beyond full employment.
There is an inflationary gap equal to BE, or $1,000 billion, just as in the diagram immediately above it.
In the lower middle panel, the aggregate demand curve D1D1 is at just the right level to produce an equilibrium at full employment.

There is neither inflationary nor a recessionary gap, as in the diagram just above it. It may seem, therefore, that we have done nothing but restate our previous conclusions. But, in fact, we have done much more. Because now that we ha’ studied the determination of the equilibrium price level, we are able to examine how the economy adjusts to either a recessionary gap or an inflationary gap.

Specifically, since wages are fixed in the short run, any one of the three cases depicted in Figure 27-4 can occur.
But, in the long run, wages will adjust to lab market conditions.
It is to that adjustment that we now turn.
ADJUSTING TO A RECESSlONARY GAP: DEFLATION OR UNEMPLOYMENT? Suppose the economy starts with a recessionary gap-that is, an equilibrium below full employment-as in the lower left-hand panel of Figure 27-4,

This might be caused, for example, by inadequate consumer spending or by anemic investment spending. What happens next? With equilibrium GDP below potential, jobs will be hard to find. The ran of the unemployed will exceed the number expected to be jobless because moving, changing occupations, and so on.

In the terminology of Chapter 23, there will be a considerable amount of cyclical unemployment. Businesses, on the other hand, will have little trouble finding workers. And their current employees will be eager to hang on to their jobs. In such an environment, it will be very difficult for workers to win wage increases.

Indeed, in extreme situations, wages may even fall-thus shifting the aggregate supply curve outward. (Remember, an aggregate supply curve is drawn for a given money wage.) But as the aggregate supply curve shifts outward-eventually moving from SoSo to S1S1 in Figure 27-5 -prices decline and the recessionary gap shrinks.

This is the process by which deflation erodes the recessionary gap, eventually leading the economy to an equilibrium at full employment (point F in Figure 27-5 ).
But there is an important catch.
In our modern economy, this adjustment process proceeds slowly-painfully slowly.
Our brief review of the historical record in Chapter 22 showed that the history of the United States includes several examples of deflation before World War II but none since.

Not even the severe recession of 1981-1982, during which unemployment climbed above 10 percent, was able to force average prices and wages down-though it certainly slowed their rates of increase. Similarly, the recession of the early 1990s reduced inflation, but certainly did not bring deflation.

Exactly why wages and prices rarely fall in our modern economy has been a subject of intense and continuing controversy among economists for years.
Some economists emphasize institutional factors like minimum wage laws, union contracts, and a variety of government regulations that place legal floors under particular wages and prices.

Because most of these institutions are of relatively recent vintage, this theory successfully explains why wages and prices fall less frequently now than they did before World War II. However, only a small minority of the U.S. economy is subject to legal restraints on wage and price cutting.

So it seems doubtful that legal restrictions can provide a complete explanation.
Other observers suggest that workers have a profound psychological resistance to accepting a wage reduction.
This theory certainly has the ring of truth.
Think how you would react if your boss announced he was cutting your hourly wage rate.

You might quit, or you might devote less care to your job. If the boss suspects you will react this way, he may be reluctant to cut your wage. Nowadays, genuine wage reductions are rare enough to be newsworthy. United Airlines was one of the few firms that managed to cut wages; workers accepted an average 15 percent pay cut shortly after a 1994 employee buyout of the company.

Many other companies have tried, but failed, to win similar concessions from their workers.
While no one doubts that wage cuts can be bad for morale, the psychological theory has one major drawback.
It fails to explain why the psychological resistance to wage cuts apparently started only after World War II.

Until a satisfactory answer to this question is provided, many economists will remain skeptical. A third explanation is based on a fact we emphasized in Chapter 22-that business cycles were less severe in the postwar period than they were in the prewar period.

Because workers and firms came to believe that recessions would not turn into depressions, the argument goes, they may have decided to wait out the bad times rather than accept wage or price reductions that they would later regret. Yet another theory is,based on the old adage, “you get what you pay for.” The idea is that workers differ in productivity, but that productivities of individual employees are hard to identify.

Firms therefore worry that a general wage reduction will result in the loss of their best employees-since these workers have the best opportunities elsewhere in the economy. Rather than take this chance, the argument goes, firms prefer to maintain high wages even in recessions.

There are other theories as well, none of which commands a clear majority of professional opinion.
But, regardless of the cause, we may as well accept the fact that, in our modern economy, prices and wages generally fall only sluggishly when demand is weak.
The implications of this rigidity are quite serious, for a recessionary gap cannot cure itself without some deflation.

And if wages and prices will not fall, recessionary gaps like EB in Figure 27-5 will linger for a long time. That is: When aggregate demand is low, the economy may get stuck with a recessionary gap for a long time. If wages and prices fall very slowly, the economy will endure a prolonged period of production below potential GDP.

DOES THE ECONOMY HAVE A SELF-CORRECTING MECHANISM? Now a situation like this would, presumably, not last forever. As the recession lengthened, and perhaps deepened, more and more workers would be unable to find jobs at the prevailing high wages. Eventually, their need to be employed would overwhelm their resistance to wage cuts.

Firms, too, would become increasingly willing to cut prices as the period of weak demand persisted and managers became convinced that the slump was not merely a temporary aberration. Prices and wages did, in fact, fall during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

How does an increase in wages affect demand?

Solutions – Answers to Self-Check Questions

Changes in the wage rate (the price of labor) cause a movement along the demand curve. A change in anything else that affects demand for labor (e.g., changes in output, changes in the production process that use more or less labor, government regulation) causes a shift in the demand curve.
Changes in the wage rate (the price of labor) cause a movement along the supply curve. A change in anything else that affects supply of labor (e.g., changes in how desirable the job is perceived to be, government policy to promote training in the field) causes a shift in the supply curve.
Since a living wage is a suggested minimum wage, it acts like a price floor (assuming, of course, that it is followed). If the living wage is binding, it will cause an excess supply of labor at that wage rate.