Identification and Estimation of a Labour Market Model for the Tradeables Sector: the Greek Case

This paper derives a theoretical labour market model for the tradeables sector of a small open economy. Using Greek manufacturing data and applying multivariate cointegrating techniques, two cointegrating vectors are estimated based on the a priori restrictions provided by the theoretical model; a labour demand and a real exchange rate equation, respectively. The short-run estimates of the model suggest that labour decisions not only depend upon past disequilibria in the labour market, but also on the discrepancy between the real exchange rate and its implied long-run equilibrium relationship, that is, the magnitude of the real exchange rate misalignment.