The authors estimate the employment effects of changes in national minimum wages using a pooled cross-section time-series data set comprising 17 OECD countries for the period 1975-2000. The average effects they find are consistent with the view that minimum wages cause employment losses among...

Aggregate labor cost equations tended to overpredict labor-cost inflation in the United States in the 1980s. We consider the hypothesis that a change in the price-inflation-expectations mechanism can explain this apparent structural shift in the 1980s. We examine whether the sharp recession of...

The authors examine evidence on bias in OLS estimates of the economic return to schooling. To study omitted-ability bias, they use test scores available in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth as proxies for ability allowing for measurement error in these test scores. The authors also...

We study the relationship between proxies for extramarginal wage payments and subsequent hostile takeover activity, and find little evidence that the takeovers are motivated by the expropriation of extramarginal wages. Then, using data on wage and employment structures both before and after...

We present evidence on the effects of minimum wages on family incomes. The results indicate that minimum wages increase both the probability that poor families escape poverty and the probability that previously nonpoor families fall into poverty. The estimated increase in the flow into poverty...

Although the debate over Affirmative Action is both high-profile and high-intensity, neither side's position is based on a well-established set of research findings. Economics provides an extensive, well-known literature on which to draw regarding the existence and extent of labor market...

This paper reports on a small-scale audit study that investigates sex discrimination in restaurant hiring. Comparably matched pairs of men and women applied for jobs as waiters and waitresses at 65 restaurants in Philadelphia. The 130 applications led to 54 interviews and 39 job offers. The...

This paper presents evidence on the employment effects of recent minimum wage increases from a pre-specified research design that entailed committing to a detailed set of statistical analyses prior to 'going to' the data. Despite the limited data to which the pre-specified research design can be...

Nearly 100 cities and local governments in the United States passed living wage laws since the mid-1990s. The central goal of living wages is to reduce poverty, yet they may fail to do so because of disemployment effects. We summarize and critique the existing research on the effects of living...