scholarly journals The Minimum Wage Affects Them All: Evidence on Employment Spillovers in the Roofing Sector

2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 282-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bodo Aretz ◽  
Terry Gregory ◽  
Melanie Arntz
Keyword(s):  
Minimum Wage ◽  
Scale Effects ◽  
Minimum Wages ◽  
Wage Distribution ◽  
Employment Effects ◽  
Eastern Germany

Abstract This study contributes to the sparse literature on employment spillovers of minimum wages. We exploit the minimum wage introduction and subsequent increases in the German roofing sector that gave rise to an internationally unprecedented hard bite of a minimum wage. We look at the chances of remaining employed in the roofing sector for workers with and without a binding minimum wage and use the plumbing sector that is not subject to a minimum wage as a suitable benchmark sector. By estimating the counterfactual wage that plumbers would receive in the roofing sector given their characteristics, we are able to identify employment effects along the entire wage distribution. The results indicate that the chances for roofers to remain employed in the sector in eastern Germany deteriorated along the entire wage distribution. Such employment spillovers to workers without a binding minimum wage may result from scale effects and/or capital-labour substitution.

scholarly journals The Econometrics and Economics of the Employment Effects of Minimum Wages: Getting from Known Unknowns to Known Knowns

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 293-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Neumark
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Minimum Wage ◽  
Past Research ◽  
The United States ◽  
Minimum Wages ◽  
Definitive Answer ◽  
Employment Effects ◽  
Conflicting Evidence ◽  
Known Unknowns ◽  
Wage Increases

Abstract I discuss the econometrics and the economics of past research on the effects of minimum wages on employment in the United States. My intent is to try to identify key questions raised in the recent literature, and some from the earlier literature, which I think hold the most promise for understanding the conflicting evidence and arriving at a more definitive answer about the employment effects of minimum wages. My secondary goal is to discuss how we can narrow the range of uncertainty about the likely effects of the large minimum wage increases becoming more prevalent in the United States. I discuss some insights from both theory and past evidence that may be informative about the effects of high minimum wages, and try to emphasize what research can be done now and in the near future to provide useful evidence to policymakers on the results of the coming high minimum wage experiment, whether in the United States or in other countries.

scholarly journals The Effect of Minimum Wages on Low-Wage Jobs*

2019 ◽  
Vol 134 (3) ◽  
pp. 1405-1454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Doruk Cengiz ◽  
Arindrajit Dube ◽  
Attila Lindner ◽  
Ben Zipperer
Keyword(s):  
Minimum Wage ◽  
State Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Minimum Wages ◽  
Wage Distribution ◽  
Employment Effect ◽  
Hourly Wage ◽  
Difference In Differences ◽  
Bottom Part ◽  
Demographic Groups

Abstract We estimate the effect of minimum wages on low-wage jobs using 138 prominent state-level minimum wage changes between 1979 and 2016 in the United States using a difference-in-differences approach. We first estimate the effect of the minimum wage increase on employment changes by wage bins throughout the hourly wage distribution. We then focus on the bottom part of the wage distribution and compare the number of excess jobs paying at or slightly above the new minimum wage to the missing jobs paying below it to infer the employment effect. We find that the overall number of low-wage jobs remained essentially unchanged over the five years following the increase. At the same time, the direct effect of the minimum wage on average earnings was amplified by modest wage spillovers at the bottom of the wage distribution. Our estimates by detailed demographic groups show that the lack of job loss is not explained by labor-labor substitution at the bottom of the wage distribution. We also find no evidence of disemployment when we consider higher levels of minimum wages. However, we do find some evidence of reduced employment in tradeable sectors. We also show how decomposing the overall employment effect by wage bins allows a transparent way of assessing the plausibility of estimates.

Employment effects of union-bargained minimum wages

2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (5) ◽  
pp. 694-710 ◽  
Author(s):  
Per Skedinger
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Minimum Wages ◽  
Wage Distribution ◽  
Collective Agreement ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Employment Effects ◽  
Employment Transitions ◽  
Part Time ◽  
Econometric Approach ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of collectively agreed increases in minimum wages for manual workers on employment transitions and hours. Design/methodology/approach – The econometric approach relies on the identification of workers affected by minimum wage changes, depending on their position in the wage distribution and contrasts outcomes for these workers to those for unaffected workers, with slightly higher wages. Findings – The analysis suggests that separations increase as minimum wages increase and that substitution between worker groups in response to changes in minimum wages is important in retail. In general, though, hours do not change much as minimum wages increase. Research limitations/implications – Analyses that deal with employment consequences of increasing minimum wages but disregard hours may exaggerate the overall decline in employment to the extent that job losses are concentrated among low-paid, part-time workers. Practical implications – With union-bargained minimum wages, unions and employers need to carefully consider the effects of increasing rates on employment. Social implications – The findings that there is a trade-off between higher wages among the low-paid and employment loss and that employment to some extent is reshuffled between individuals should be important from a welfare perspective. Originality/value – The literature on employment effects of minimum wages is large, but very few studies are concerned with union-bargained minimum wages. The assumptions of the econometric model are tested in a novel way by imposing fictitious minimum wages on lower-level non-manuals in the same industry, with turnover characteristics similar to those of manuals but covered by a different collective agreement with non-binding actual minimum wages.

scholarly journals The Contribution of the Minimum Wage to US Wage Inequality over Three Decades: A Reassessment

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
David H. Autor ◽  
Alan Manning ◽  
Christopher L. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Minimum Wage ◽  
Wage Inequality ◽  
Wage Structure ◽  
Earnings Inequality ◽  
Minimum Wages ◽  
Wage Distribution ◽  
Prior Work ◽  
Lower Tail ◽  
Structure Changes ◽  
Wage Effects

We reassess the effect of minimum wages on US earnings inequality using additional decades of data and an IV strategy that addresses potential biases in prior work. We find that the minimum wage reduces inequality in the lower tail of the wage distribution, though by substantially less than previous estimates, suggesting that rising lower tail inequality after 1980 primarily reflects underlying wage structure changes rather than an unmasking of latent inequality. These wage effects extend to percentiles where the minimum is nominally nonbinding, implying spillovers. We are unable to reject that these spillovers are due to reporting artifacts, however. (JEL J22, J31, J38, K31)

Employment Effects of Minimum and Subminimum Wages: Panel Data on State Minimum Wage Laws

ILR Review ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Neumark ◽  
William Wascher
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Panel Data ◽  
Minimum Wage ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
Minimum Wages ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Employment Effects ◽  
Time Series Studies

Using panel data on state minimum wage laws and economic conditions for the years 1973–89, the authors reevaluate existing evidence on the effects of a minimum wage on employment. Their estimates indicate that a 10% increase in the minimum wage causes a decline of 1–2% in employment among teenagers and a decline of 1.5–2% in employment for young adults, similar to the ranges suggested by earlier time-series studies. The authors also find evidence that youth subminimum wage provisions enacted by state legislatures moderate the disemployment effects of minimum wages on teenagers.

scholarly journals The Effect of Provincial Minimum Wage on Wage Inequality in Java

2019 ◽  
pp. 352-357
Author(s):  
Daniel Bastian Lubis ◽  
Syamsul Hidayat Pasaribu ◽  
Muhammad Findi
Keyword(s):  
Income Inequality ◽  
Labor Force ◽  
Minimum Wage ◽  
Wage Inequality ◽  
Wage Gap ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Minimum Wages ◽  
Wage Distribution ◽  
Wage Setting ◽  
The Impact

The minimum wage setting policy as an effort to improve wage distribution and expected to reduce income inequality is still being a debate in the literatures. However, similar studies, especially those that examine the impact of establishing minimum wages on the conditions of wages for workers in different percentile groups, have not been widely practiced in Indonesia. This study aims to analyze the increase in effective minimum wages against the wage gap of workers in the period 2008-2017 in Java using the National Labor Force Survey (Sakernas) data. Through the OLS method, we find that the impact of minimum wages is not the same among percentile groups. The effective minimum wage has a negative impact on the wage 30th percentile group where an increase in effective wage will reduces the gap between the 30th percentile and the 50th percentile. We find different result on 60th percentile. On this percentile, the effective minimum wage will increases the gap between the 60th percentile and the 50th percentile, this result implies a spillover.

Monopsony power and the demand for low-skilled workers

2021 ◽  
pp. 103530462110424
Author(s):  
Arnd Kölling
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Minimum Wage ◽  
Minimum Wages ◽  
Labour Demand ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Jel Codes ◽  
Employment Effects ◽  
Monopsony Power

This study analyses firms’ labour demand when employers have at least some monopsony power. It is argued that without taking into account (quasi-)monopsonistic structures of the labour market, wrong predictions are made about the effects of minimum wages. Using switching fractional panel probit regressions with German establishment data, I find that slightly more than 80% of establishments exercise some degree of monopsony power in their demand for low-skilled workers. The outcome suggests that a 1% increase in payments for low-skilled workers would, in these firms, increase employment for this group by 1.12%, while firms without monopsony power reduce the number of low-skilled, by about 1.63% for the same increase in remuneration. The study can probably also be used to explain the limited employment effects of the introduction of a statutory minimum wage in Germany and thus leads to a better understanding of the labour market for low-skilled workers. JEL Codes: J23, J42, C23, D24

Reply to “Credible Research Designs for Minimum Wage Studies”

ILR Review ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 70 (3) ◽  
pp. 593-609 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Neumark ◽  
William Wascher
Keyword(s):  
Panel Data ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
Minimum Wage ◽  
State Level ◽  
Minimum Wages ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Employment Effects ◽  
Research Designs ◽  
Wage Employment

The authors make three points in this reply to the article by Allegretto, Dube, Reich, and Zipperer (ADRZ 2017). First, ADRZ shed no new light on the sensitivity of estimated minimum wage employment effects to the treatment of trends in state-level panel data, and they make some arguments in this context that are misleading or simply wrong. Second, the key issue ADRZ emphasize—using “close controls” to account for shocks that are correlated with minimum wage changes—does not generate large differences in findings, and ADRZ do not address evidence from Neumark, Salas, and Wascher (NSW 2014a) that questions the validity of the close controls used in Allegretto, Dube, and Reich’s (ADR 2011) and Dube, Lester, and Reich’s (DLR 2010) work. Third, ADRZ ignore or dismiss a growing number of studies that address in various ways the same issue of potential correlations between minimum wages and shocks to low-skill labor markets that ADRZ argue generate spurious evidence of disemployment effects, yet often find rather large negative effects of minimum wages on low-skilled employment.

Wage Bargaining and Minimum Wages in a Search–Matching Model

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus Dittrich
Keyword(s):  
Minimum Wage ◽  
Spillover Effects ◽  
Theoretical Explanation ◽  
Wage Bargaining ◽  
Minimum Wages ◽  
Wage Distribution ◽  
Nash Solution ◽  
Bargaining Solution ◽  
Matching Model ◽  
The Nash Solution

In this paper, we analyze the introduction of a nonbinding minimum wage in a search–matching model with wage bargaining. Applying the Kalai–Smorodinsky bargaining solution instead of the commonly applied Nash solution, we provide a theoretical explanation for spillover effects of minimum wages on other wages higher up in the wage distribution. The labor market equilibrium in the Kalai–Smorodinsky solution with a minimum wage is characterized by lower market tightness, a higher unemployment rate, and lower vacancy rate than the equilibrium in the Nash solution. Moreover, we show that a nonbinding minimum wage can increase social welfare.

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