Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/108395 
Year of Publication: 
1999
Series/Report no.: 
Budapest Working Papers on the Labour Market No. BWP - 1999/5
Publisher: 
Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Economics, Labour Research Department, Budapest
Abstract: 
The paper analyses regional relative wages using individual and firmlevel data from Hungary 1986-96. In regions hit hard by the transition shock labour costs fell substantially; the estimated elasticities of wages with respect to regional unemployment were in a range typical of mature market economies already in 1992-93. In later stages of the transition the hard-hit rural regions lost a large part of their cost advantage vis-ê-vis Budapest and the central agglomeration for reasons including spatial diseconomies and falling search activity among the registered unemployed. The paper argues that the time path observed in Hungary (a U-curve of relative labour costs in crisis-hit regions) may prevail in other economies calling the attention to the limits of wage flexibility as a cure to persistent regional crises.
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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