Potere contrattuale dei lavoratori e inflazione: un’analisi empirica

The purpose of this study is to create a synthetic measure of workers’ bargain- ning power and analyze how it relates to inflation in the US economy. We first identify the variables influencing workers’ bargaining power by referring to various categories of variables, including labor market indicators, institutional indicators (such as collective bargaining coverage and union density), and eco- nomic characteristics (such as the degree of capital mobility and the proportion of employment by sector). The indicators are then evaluated using Principal Component Analysis (PCA), and weights are determined to combine the indivi- dual indicators into a composite index. In a subsequent stage, we estimate the effect of our Bargaining index on inflation between the 1968 and the 2018. Thus, the composite index serves two purposes: it reveals the degree to which shifts in the labor market over the past few decades have reduced employees’ negotiating strength and it can be used to examine how changes in the wage negotiation system have an impact on inflation.