What is a wage price spiral? I like this snippet I took from a larger entry in BusinessDictionary.com. A wage price spiral (also referred to as a inflationary spiral), in layman’s terms, is when the “high cost of living prompts demands for higher wages which push production costs up forcing firms to increase prices, which in turn trigger calls for fresh wage increases … and so on.”
Is a wage price spiral imminent? Well as many a business student has heard in class, “it depends.” A recent on-line posting for Fortune has the Federal Reserve betting against it citing that the weak labor market will quash employee demands for wage increases.
Further Reading - IMF Working Paper: The Wage-Price Spiral: Industry Country Evidence and Implications
I thought this was an interesting read. Magda Kandil in this paper discusses “the dynamics of nominal wage and price adjustments in the face of aggregate demand shocks” and how “conditions in labor and product markets of various economies” effects those dynamics . I found this working paper on a resource I visit often, the SSRN (Social Science Research Network) Electronic Library. Check it out!
Categories: American Economy · Economics · Working Papers
A forth coming documentary I.O.U.S.A by the husband and wife team Patrick Creadon and Christine O’Malley says we’re headed that way. A little scary, yes? But hey, scary sells tickets.
They have an impressive line up of names as featured interview subjects. Among them: Warren Buffet, Alan Greenspan, and David Walker. Usually when these people speak, people tend to listen. I think I will give it a gander. The sneak peek trailer definitely peaked my interest. I’ll let you know what I thought.
Categories: American Economy · Economics
Time and time again over the last few years we keep hearing about the questionable ethics involved in competitive intelligence efforts. From the things I’ve read, one would think that ethics may even be a detriment to a successful intelligence gathering venture. But let’s face it, lies, spies, and deceit sells stories, while high standards and integrity does not.
Is unethical so bad, if it is not illegal? Where is the line? Would you cross it?
An honesty question. What would you do, if you found yourself in possession of product launch plans, prices and margins for your biggest competitor’s future product line – and they had no idea you had this information? This is the exact scenario that is given in the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth’s case study “The Ethics of Competitive Intelligence.”
It is a quick and interesting read. This case will lead to a lot of discussion on a corporation’s responsibility when representative actions violate internal policies and principles.
Categories: Case studies · Competitive Intelligence
