Implementation of workplace policies--whether through enforcement of laws or administration of programs--raises the question of the interaction between institutions created to carry out laws and the activities of workplace based agents that directly (e.g. unions) or indirectly (e.g. insurance...

We propose a novel method that infers the employment effect of a minimum wage increase by comparing the number of excess jobs paying at or slightly above the new minimum wage to the missing jobs paying below it. To implement our approach, we estimate the effect of the minimum wage on the...

We present a new approach to estimating minimum wage effects on employment. In contrast to most previous research, we account for the possibility that the relationship between minimum wages and employment depends on the magnitude of the minimum wage relative to the equilibrium wage in the...

After nearly a decade without change, legislation that affected the Federal minimum wage in two significant ways took effect on April 1, 1990: (1) the hourly minimum wage was increased from $3.35 to $3.80; and (2) employers were enabled to pay a subminimum wage to teenage workers for up to six...

Instrumental variables (IV) are a common means to identify treatment effects. But standard IV methods do not allow us to unpack the complex treatment effects that arise when a treatment and its outcome together cause a second outcome of interest. For example, IV methods have been used to show...

This paper presents a semiparametric procedure to analyze the effects of institutional and labor market factors on recent changes in the U.S. distribution of wages. The effects of these factors are estimated by applying kernel density methods to appropriately 'reweighted' samples. The procedure...

The model predicts a near doubling of the ratio of high- to low-skilled wages over the century. Increasing wage inequality arises from a traditional source -- a rising worldwide relative supply of unskilled labor, reflecting Chinese and Indian productivity improvements. But China's and India's...

Labor market tightness following the height of the Covid-19 pandemic led to an unexpected compression in the US wage distribution that reflects, in part, an increase in labor market competition. Rapid relative wage growth at the bottom of the distribution reduced the college wage premium and...

Prevailing wage laws, which require that construction workers employed by private contractors on public projects be paid at least the wages and benefits that are "prevailing" for similar work in or near the locality in which the project is located, have been the focus of an extensive policy...