What is the impact of raising the minimum wage on family incomes? To test this, I use data from Australia, a country whose minimum wages are among the highest in the world. Analyzing the characteristics of low wage workers, I find that those who earn near-minimum wages are disproportionately...

Theory suggests that groups historically subject to discrimination, such as Jews, could exhibit traditionally high investment in education because discrimination spurred exit facilitated by human capital. Theory moreover suggests that if exit is uncertain, it could induce investment in skill...

"As wealth inequality skyrockets and trade union power declines, the living wage movement has become ever more urgent for public policymakers, academics, and-most importantly-those workers whose wages hover close to the breadline. A real living wage in any part of the world is rarely its minimum...

This paper examines the effects of the Victorian Factory and Shops Act, the first minimum wage law in Australia. The Act differed from modern minimum wage laws in that it established Special Boards, which set trade-specific minimum wage schedules. We use trade-level data on average wages,...

On 3 June 2010, the Minimum Wage Panel of Fair Work Australia concluded its Annual Wage Review for 2009-10. Having considered the evidence from written submissions, public consultations and a range of internal and external research, the Panel decided to increase minimum wage rates in modern...

The attainment of ‘fairness' is widely regarded as a worthy goal of setting minimum wages, but opinions differ sharply over how to achieve it. This paper examines how interpretations of fairness shaped the minimum wage decisions of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission between 1997...

The Australian Federal Minimum Wage has long historical roots going back to the 1907 Harvester Decision which established a ‘fair and reasonable' wage to meet the needs of a working man and his family. In recent decades there have been significant changes in the role of the wage, many of which...

Why is it that Papua New Guinea, a country of nearly nine million people – 3.2 million of whom are aged 20 to 45 years of age, have so few workers able to access high-paying jobs in its near neighbours? In relation to opportunities for low-skilled, temporary work, Papua New Guinea in 2017-18...