The Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages represents a watershed initiative adding substance to the EU's social dimension. It contains two ambitious objectives: establishing the minimum level of statutory minimum wages (SMWs) at 60% of the gross median wage, and increasing collective bargaining...

Why do labor unions and left/labor parties support the statutory minimum wage in some countries, such as the United States, but oppose it in others, such as Denmark or Sweden? This paper presents a formal model of trade union preferences for the statutory minimum wage. On the one hand, the...

Despite some skepticism among experts about the effects of a minimum wage, there is remarkably widespread public support for such policies. Using representative survey data from 2015 and 2016, we investigate the subjective attitudes driving public support for Germany’s recent minimum wage...

I consider the case for the minimum wage alongside (optimal) income taxes when workers differ in both wages and working hours, such that a given level of income corresponds to multiple wage rates. The minimum wage is directly targeted at the lowest-wage workers, while income taxes are at most...

We analyze the redistributive (dis)advantages of a minimum wage over income taxation in competitive labor markets. A minimum wage causes more unemployment, but also leads to more skill formation as unemployment is concentrated on low-skilled workers. A simple condition based on three sufficient...

A recent paper by Meer and West argues that minimum wages reduce aggregate employment growth, and that this relationship is masked by looking at employment levels. I also find a negative association between minimum wages and aggregate employment growth using both the Business Dynamics Statistics...

This paper analyses economists' support for the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013, by examining the characteristics of almost 1000 economists who signed open letters either supporting or opposing the Bill prior to a Senate debate on the legislation. In contrast to previous work, which found that...

We analyze how wage setting institutions and job-security provisions interact on unemployment. The assumption that wages are renegotiated by mutual agreement only is introduced in a matching model with endogenous job destruction - la Mortensen and Pissarides (1994) in order to get wage profiles...

For two different regulatory standards, we examine the optimal minimum wage in a competitive labour market when the government is uncertain about supply and demand. Solutions are related to underlying supply and demand conditions, and the extent of uncertainty and of rationing efficiency. We...

In this paper, we discuss the importance of sample size in the evaluation of minimum wage effects. We first show which sample sizes are necessary to make reliable statements about the effects of minimum wages on binary outcomes, and second how to determine these sample sizes. This is...