The present economic crisis comes against the background of decades of policy changesthat have generally weakened the capacity of social safety nets to offer citizens withadequate resources for financial survival when labour markets fail to do so. Building on datafor 24 European Union countries,...

We study the impact of tax and minimum wage reforms on the incidence of informality. Togauge the incidence of informality, we use measures of the extent of tax evasion, the extentof minimum wage non-compliance, and the size of the informal workforce. Our approachallows us to examine (i) the...

Worker-level panel data are used to analyse the separate employment effects of increases in the social security taxes paid by employers and increases in the minimum wage in Turkey between 2002 and 2005. Variation over time and among low-wage workers in the ratio of total labour costs to the...

The economic impact of the 2007-2009 increases in the federal minimum wage (MW) isanalyzed using a sample of quick-service restaurants in Georgia and Alabama. Store-levelbiweekly payroll records for individual employees are used, allowing us to precisely measurethe MW compliance cost for each...

This paper examines the impact of minimum wages on earnings and employment in selected branches of the retail-trade sector, 1990-2005, using county-level data on employment and a panel regression framework that allows for county-specific trends in sectoral outcomes...

This study examines how minimum wage laws affect the employment and earnings of low-skilled immigrants and natives in the U.S. Minimum wage increases might have larger effects among low-skilled immigrants than among natives because, on average, immigrants earn less than natives due to lower...

In view of rising wage inequality and increasing poverty, the introduction of a legal minimum wage has recently become an important policy issue in Germany. We analyze the distributional effects of the introduction of a nationwide legal minimum wage of 7.5 per hour on the basis of a...

The principal means by which individuals and families achieve economic self-sufficiency is through labor market earnings. As a consequence, it is natural for policy makers to look to interventions that increase the ability of individuals and families to achieve an adequate standard of living...

We show that, contrary to widespread belief, low-pay workers do not generally prefer that theminimum wage rate be increased until the labor demand is unitary elastic...

In many countries, non-compliance with minimum wage legislation is widespread, andauthorities may be seen as having turned a blind eye to a legislation that they havethemselves passed. But if enforcement is imperfect, how effective can a minimum wage be?And if non-compliance is widespread, why...