The available minimum wage literature, which is mostly based on US evidence, is not very useful for analyzing developing countries, where the minimum wage affects many more workers and labor institutions and law enforcement differ in important ways. The main contribution of this paper is to...

A national minimum wage cannot explain variation in wages or employment across regions. Identification of the effect of the minimum wage separately from the effect of other variables on wages or employment requires regional variation. Many minimum wage variables with regional variation have been...

The few price effect studies available in the literature are grounded on the standard theory prediction that if employers do not respond to minimum wage increases by reducing employment or profits, they respond by raising prices. However, none of them explicitly discusses the theoretical model...

This paper presents new evidence on the effects of the minimum wage using Brazilian monthly household and firm panel data between 1982 and 2000. By examining the effects on wages, employment and prices together we are able to provide an explanation for the small employment effects prevalent in...

It is well established in the literature that minimum wage increases compress the wage distribution. Firms respond to these higher labour costs by reducing employment, reducing profits, or raising prices. While there are hundreds of studies on the employment effect of the minimum wage, there are...

Several minimum wage variables have been suggested in the literature. Such a variety of variables makes it difficult to compare the associated estimates across studies. One problem is that these estimates are not always calibrated to represent the effect of a 10% increase in the minimum wage....

With small employment responses becoming prevalent in the literature, the minimum wage is just a program that transfers money from one group to another. If the poor are the consumers of minimum wage labour intensive goods, or if these goods represent a large proportion of their consumption...

The international literature on minimum wage greatly lacks empirical evidence from developing countries. Brazil’s minimum wage policy is a distinctive and central feature of the Brazilian economy. Not only are increases in the minimum wage large and frequent but also the minimum wage has been...

This paper puts together evidence for the wages, employment and price effects of the minimum wage. This overall picture will help to understand the small employment effects prevalent in the literature in the light of price effects. The data used is an under-explored monthly Brazilian household...

Following the early 1980s apparent consensus, there has been a controversial debate in the literature over the direction of the minimum wage employment effect. Explanations to non-negative effects range from theoretical to empirical identification and data issues. An explanation, however, that...