A note on the nonlinear wages-productivity nexus for Malaysia

This study is to empirically investigate the effect of real wages on productivity in Malaysia using monthly data from January 1983 to November 2009. The Johansen’s test suggests that wages and productivity are cointegrated. Moreover, productivity and real wages have a quadratic relationship in the long run (i.e., inverse-U shape curve) instead of linear relationship. Hence, the effect of real wages on productivity is not monotonic. Furthermore, the Granger causality test indicates that real wages and productivity is bilateral causality in nature.