At the European level and in most EU member states, higher employment levels are seen as key to better poverty outcomes. But what can we expect the actual impact to be? Up until now shift-share analysis has been used to estimate the impact of rising employment on relative income poverty. This...

We provide updated evidence on the effects of living wage laws in U.S. cities, relative to the earlier research covering only the first six or seven years of existence of these laws. There are some challenges to updating the evidence, as the CPS data on which it relies changed geographic coding...

This paper uses Italian panel data to analyse transition probabilities at the bottom of the earnings distribution during the 1990s. The analytical framework is characterised by the ability to account for the endogeneity of initial conditions, educational attainment and earnings attrition,...

This research evaluates the impact on German household labor supply of various subsidy schemes proposed to foster low-wage employment. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we estimate a discrete choice model of household labor supply. On the basis of the estimated labor supply...

In this article, we study the impact of changes of total labor costs on employment of low-wage workers in France in a period, 1990 to 1998, that saw sudden and large changes in these costs. We use longitudinal data from the French Labor Force survey (? enqu?te emploi ?) in order to understand...

Das heutige System der sozialen Mindestsicherung verhindert in Deutschland die Ausbildung eines Niedriglohnsektors. Dies ist eine wesentliche Ursache für die hohe Arbeitslosigkeit Geringqualifizierter. Dieser Beitrag stellt zwei häufig genannte Maßnahmen zur Überwindung sozialstaatlicher...

We assess the labour supply effects of two 'making work pay' reforms in Germany. We provide evidence in favour of policies that distinguish between low effort and low productivity by targeting individuals with low wages rather than individuals with low earnings. In assessing the policies we...

We use county-level data on employment and earnings in the restaurant-and-bar sector to evaluate the impact of minimum wage changes on low-wage labor markets. Our empirical approach is similar to the literature that has used state-level panel data to estimate minimum-wage impacts, with the...

The negative correlation between female employment and fertility in industrialized nations has weakened since the 1960s, particularly in the United States. We suggest that the continuing influx of low-skilled immigrants has led to a substantial reduction in the trade-off between work and...

Using panel data for twelve European countries over the period 1994-2001 we estimate the extent of state dependence in low pay. Controlling for observable and unobservable heterogeneity as well as the endogeneity of initial conditions we find positive, statistically significant state dependence...