This study uses employment data on California county-industry pairs (CIPs) between 1990 and 2016 to test whether minimum wage increases caused employment growth to slow most in the CIPS with a large share of low wage workers. Evidence supports the hypothesis, and we use the estimates to simulate...

The level of compliance with minimum wage laws often depends on factors specific to each labor market. In most developing countries, a substantial share of workers still earns less than the legal minimum. Enforcement has not kept up with growth in regulations to protect workers from low wages...

This paper attempts to investigate the impact of sectoral wage laws in South Africa. Specifically, we examine the impact of minimum wage laws promulgated in the Retail, Domestic work, Forestry, Security, and Taxi sectors using 15 waves of biannual Labour Force Survey data for the 2000–2007...

Nearly one-third of all American workers are paid very low wages, the highest rate among wealthy nations. An incidence of low pay at this level has obvious implications for the current standard of living for a substantial share of American families. But of particular concern are the implications...

In contrast to common theoretical expectations, the negative employment effects of minimum wages have mostly been found to be small or insignificant by empirical studies. In order to explain these findings, we use a labor market model that is based on the insight that market wages may be...

The statutory minimum wage has steadily increased for decades in Japan, while the median wage has fallen nominally since 1999 because of a severe recession. We use large micro-data sets from two government surveys to investigate how the minimum wage has affected the wage distribution under...