What a Puzzle! Unravelling Why UK Phillips Curves were Unstable

Abstract

Abstract The UK relationship between nominal wage inflation and the unemployment rate is unstable. Over sub‐periods of the last 160 years of turbulent data, Phillips curve slopes range from strongly negative, slightly negative, flat, slightly positive and strongly positive. Our constant‐parameter congruent model of real wages explains these instabilities, yet also implies a constant negative relationship between nominal wage inflation and the unemployment rate when corrected by its regressors. Disentangling these effects reveals that structural breaks in the real‐wage model's variables do not explain the instabilities, which instead occur during sub‐periods when some of its explanatory variables are insignificant.

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