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Monday, December 1, 2014

Henry Thornton on Downwards Nominal Wage Rigidity

From Henry Thornton’s An Enquiry into the Nature and Effects of the Paper Credit of Great Britain (1802):
“But, secondly, that very diminution in the price of manufactures which is supposed to cause them to be exported, may also, if carried very far, produce a suspension of the labour of those who fabricate them. The masters naturally turn off their hands when they find their article selling exceedingly ill. It is true, that if we could suppose the diminution of bank paper to produce permanently a diminution in the value of all articles whatsoever, and a diminution, as it would then be fair that it should do, in the rate of wages also, the encouragement to future manufactures would be the same, though there would be a loss on the stock in hand. The tendency, however, of a very great and sudden reduction of the accustomed number of bank notes, is to create an unusual and temporary distress, and a fall of price arising from that distress. But a fall arising from temporary distress, will be attended probably with no correspondent fall in the rate of wages; for the fall of price, and the distress, will be understood to be temporary, and the rate of wages, we know, is not so variable as the price of goods. There is reason, therefore, to fear that the unnatural and extraordinary low price arising from the sort of distress of which we now speak, would occasion much discouragement of the fabrication of manufactures.” (Thornton 1802: 81–83).
Thornton speaks as if nominal wage stickiness – or “the rate of wages, we know, is not so variable as the price of goods” – were a well known fact even in 1802.

And this was long before modern trade unions, minimum wages, or pro-labour governments.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Thornton, Henry. 1802. An Enquiry into the Nature and Effects of the Paper Credit of Great Britain. J. Hatchard, London.

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