We use policy discontinuities at state borders to identify the effects of minimum wages on earnings and employment in restaurants and other low-wage sectors. Our approach generalizes the case study method by considering all local differences in minimum wage policies between 1990 and 2006. We...

We provide the first estimates of the effects of minimum wages on employment flows in the U.S. labor market, identifying the impact using policy discontinuities at state borders. We find that minimum wages have a sizable negative effect on employment flows but not stocks: separations and...

We measure labor market frictions using a strategy that bridges design-based and structural approaches: estimating an equilibrium search model using reduced-form minimum wage elasticities identified from border discontinuities and fitted with Bayesian and LIML methods. We begin by providing the...

This paper estimates the effect of Wal-Mart expansion on wages, benefits, and skill-composition of retail workers during the 1990s. We exploit the spatial pattern of Wal-Mart diffusion, radiating outward from the original store in Benton county, Arkansas, to control for potential endogeneity in...

We provide the first estimates of the effects of minimum wages on employment flows in the U.S. labor market, identifying the impact by using policy discontinuities at state borders. We find that minimum wages have  sizeable negative effect on employment flows but not stocks. Separations and...