One reason why China has done as well as it has

Consider China, which has extremely rapid productivity growth, and hence very rapid nominal wage growth, despite an inflation rate that’s fairly similar to the US. Because the trend growth in nominal wages is so high in China, you’d expect downward wage inflexibility to be much less of a problem in China than in the US. I frequently argue that NGDP growth is often the best proxy for the welfare costs and benefits of inflation, better than inflation itself. This is one more such example, as NGDP growth is strongly correlated with productivity growth plus inflation.

That is from Scott Sumner, the rest of the post is interesting too,mostly about stickiness.  That is one reason why the Chinese (but not everyone) can “wait out” recessionary pressures with fiscal policy.  By the time the fiscal policy runs out, the underlying rate of productivity growth has helped solve the wage stickiness problem, and time has validated the demands of at least some of those stubborn workers.

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