Using data from the 2006 wave of the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), this paper analyzes how a minimum wage affects employment, wage inequality, public expenditures, and aggregate income in the low-wage sector. It is shown that a statutory minimum wage of EUR 7.50 per hour would cost...

I analyze whether wage policies -- like minimum wages and wage subsidies -- can add value to an optimal non-linear earnings tax scheme in a perfectly competitive labour market. Jobs in the labour market differ along two margins: intensity (labour effort) and duration (labour hours). Three key...

I analyze whether wage policies - like minimum wages and wage subsidies - can add value to an optimal non-linear earnings tax scheme in a perfectly competitive labour market. Jobs in the labour market differ along two margins: intensity (labour effort) and duration (labour hours). Three key...

Do minimum wages reduce in-work-poverty and wage inequality? Or can alternative policies do better? We evaluate theses issues for the exemplary case of Germany that suffers from high unemployment among low-skilled workers and rising wage dispersion at the bottom of the wage distribution. We...

Gender based taxation (GBT) has been recently proposed as a promising policy in order to improve women's status in the labour market and within the family. We use a microeconometric model of household labour supply in order to evaluate, with Italian data, the behavioural and welfare effects of...

In all continental European countries there exist non-market mechanisms that determine or "regulate" wage rates for the low-paid. We consider the experience of three countries that have national minimum wages - France, Belgium, and the Netherlands - and three where low wage rates are determined...

The depth of the Great Recession, the slow recovery of job creation, the downward trend in labor force participation, high long-term unemployment, stagnant or declining wages for low-to-medium skill jobs owing to adverse labor demand shifts, and a greater rebound in low-wage than mid- or...

This paper explores the effects of living wages on low-wage workers and low-income families. Using data for 1996-2002, it updates an earlier analysis, addresses criticisms of it, and confirms the finding that business assistance living-wage laws reduce overall urban poverty at the cost of some...

The UNDP has set Millennium Goals which include the halving of world poverty by 2015. This can be viewed in the light of enlightened self interest, including noneconomic interest, within the above view. This was translated into reducing by half the number of people living in abject poverty. We...

We estimate the impact of youth minimum wages on youth employment by exploiting a large discontinuity in Danish minimum wage rules at age 18, using monthly payroll records for the Danish population. The hourly wage jumps up by 40 percent at the discontinuity. Employment falls by 33 percent and...