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 measure workers' preferences for wages and non-wage amenities at America's largest employer, Walmart, using targeted survey experiments. We find that workers have an economically significant willingness to pay for "dignity at work". Consistent with the presence of monopsony power, we estimate...

This paper examines nonsequential search when jobs vary with respect to nonpecuniary characteristics. In the presence of frictions in the labor market, the equilibrium job distribution need not show evidence of compensating wage differentials. The model also generates several pervasive features...

Neoclassical labor market theories imply that employers will react to binding minimum wages by changing the level of employment. A multitude of studies consider this aspect of minimum wages, yet fail to reach a consensus as to its employment effects. While the employment effects of the minimum...

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 evidence on the employment effects of recent minimum wage increases from a pre-specified research design that entailed committing to a detailed set of statistical analyses prior to 'going to' the data. Despite the limited data to which the pre-specified research design can be...

The minimum wage is increasingly viewed as an important tool for improving public health outcomes, including reducing childbearing among teenagers. Taken at face value, recently reported estimates suggest that raising the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour could reduce the number of teenage...

Interactions between redistributive policies can confront low-income households with complicated choices. We study one such interaction, namely the relationship between Medicaid eligibility thresholds and the minimum wage. A minimum wage increase reduces the number of hours a low-skilled...

The hypothesis that minimum wages tend to discourage on the job training is largely supported by our empirical analysis. Direct effects on reported job training and corollary effects on wage growth as estimated in microdata of the National Longitudinal Samples (NLS) and Michigan Income Dynamics...