Economics
ECB’s Lane Says One-Off Wage Rise No Sign of Sustained Inflation
- One must distinguish transitory from permanent shifts in wages
- Medium-term inflation outlook still too subdued, Lane says
Philip Lane
Photographer: Alex Kraus/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
A one-off shift in workers’ pay in response to recent price spikes wouldn’t be a sign of sustainably higher inflation, European Central Bank Chief Economist Philip Lane said.
“Differentiating between transitory and persistent shifts in the growth rate of wages” will play an important role in assessing the progress of underlying inflation, he said at a conference on Monday. Single shifts in the level of wages do “not imply a trend shift in the path of underlying inflation.”