Minimum wage and employment in the fast food industry

Recent empirical studies on the impact of minimum wage legislation generate results that are inconsistent with conventional economic theory. Employing a methodology that compares affected with unaffected areas, these investigations indicate that employment levels are not adversely affected by the imposition of a minimum wage. Two studies in particular focus on the fast food industry. Although one study has come under attack for improperly measuring employment, an interesting theoretical question remains. This paper derives the demand for labor function of a fast food outlet facing price and profit margin constraints dictated by the company. The results of a minimum wage constraint are consistent with current empirical literature.     

Increasing returns: evidence from local wage rates in Great Britain

This paper shows that wage rate variations among local areasof Great Britain are significantly positively related to employmentdensity, and argues that this is due to the presence of increasingreturns deriving from more varied producer services in denserareas, controlling for the effect on wages of good access toan efficient workforce, either locally or as a result of in-commuting.The higher wages in Greater London in particular are seen tobe linked to increasing returns and enhanced worker efficiency,although other central city areas show similar influences toa lesser degree, with in-commuting a significant factor.     

Minimum wage rates and unemployment in The Netherlands

Summary A static limited dependent variable model is formulated to analyse the Dutch labour market from an individual's viewpoint. Results suggest that high minimum labour costs are an important source of unemployment. Secondly, the reduced-form participation equation is replaced by a neoclassical labour supply equation. Thus, also the effect of high minimum wage rates on employment through labour supply is taken into account. Supply appears to be forward bending and participation is insensitive with respect to unemployment benefits. Simulations suggest that the effect of lowering the productivity threshold by reducing before-tax minimum wages dominates supply effects.The author wishes to thank Geert Joosten, Arie Kapteyn, Peter Kooreman, Bertrand Melenberg, Viji Narendranathan and Theo Nijman for helpful comments and the Netherlands Central Bureau of Statistics for providing the data. The views expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect the policies of the CBS.     

More evidence on the puzzle of interindustry wage differentials: The case of West Germany

Zusammenfassung Mehr Evidenz zur interindustriellen Lohnstruktur in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. — Die Verfasser zeigen, da? in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland für Arbeitskr?fte mit ?hnlichen Qualifikationsmerkmalen branchenspezifische Lohnunterschiede existieren und da? die interindustrielle Lohnstruktur in der Bundesrepublik der interindustriellen Lohnstruktur in den Vereinigten Staaten gleicht. So sind der Stra?enfahrzeugbau und die Mineral?lverarbeitung in beiden L?ndern typische Hochlohnbranchen, das Bekleidungsgewerbe und das Ledergewerbe dagegen typische Niedriglohnbranchen. Diese ?hnlichkeit der interindustriellen Lohnstrukturen mu? überraschen, da sich die institutionellen Rahmenbedingungen des Arbeitsmarktes in beiden L?ndern sehr stark unterscheiden. Darüber hinaus zeigt sich, da? im Branchenquerschnitt die Verdienste von Besch?ftigten mit unterschiedlicher Qualifikation eng miteinander korreliert sind. Diese Ergebnisse sind nicht ohne weiteres mit den herk?mmlichen neoklassischen Arbeitsmarktmodellen zu vereinbaren.

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Résumé Plus d’évidence des différences inter-industrielles de salaire: Le cas de la RFA. — Cette étude représente l’évidence empirique de l’existence des différences inter-industrielles de salaire pour les ouvriers avec des qualifications similaires en RFA. La structure de salaire inter-industriel en RFA semble à celle aux Etats Unis. Dans tous les deux pays ce sont l’industrie d’automobiles et les raffineries de pétrol qui ont un typiquement haut niveau de salaire, tandis que les industries des textiles et de cuir ont un niveau bas. La similarité des structures inter-industrielles de salaire est un puzzle parce que ces deux pays ont des institutions complètement différentes en ce qui concerne le marché du travail. De plus, on a trouvé des corrélations fortes de salaire entre aucun de deux groupes d’ouvriers qualifiés sur toutes les branches en RFA. Ces résultats sont un défi pour les théories néoclassiques du marché du travail.

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Resumen Más evidencia empírica sobre el rompecabezas de las diferencias salariales interindustriales en Alemania Occidental. — En este trabajo se presenta evidencia empirica sobre la existencia de diferencias interindustriales en el nivel de salarios para trabajadores con calificación similar en Alemania Occidental. La estructura interindustrial de salarios de Alemania Occidental presenta el mismo perfil que la de los EE UU. En ambos países las ramas de salarios altos comúnmente son las de vehículos y refinación de petróleo, mientras que las ramas de salarios más bajos incluyen las de la vestimenta y cuero. La similitud de las estructuras interindustriales de ingresos indica la existencia de un rompecabezas, debido a que estos paises exhiben un marco institutional para el mercado laboral totalmente diferente. Además, se encuentra una correlación alta entre los salarios de dos grupos cualesquiera de trabajadores calificados pertenecientes a una misma industria. Estos resultados constituyen un reto a las teorías neoclásicas tradicionales del mercado laboral.

     

Baltic iron and the British iron industry in the eighteenth century

Before the revolution in coal technology that swept the British iron industry in the last years of the eighteenth century, native ironmasters were unable to meet the burgeoning demand for malleable bar iron. The shortfall was made good by imports of bar iron from the Baltic, first from Sweden, then from Russia. This article presents new empirical evidence on the role played by Baltic iron in the Georgian economy. It also considers the impact of Swedish and Russian iron on domestic ironmasters as they sought organizational, as well as technological, ways to overcome the energy constraints facing the industry.     

A research on wage status and wage expectations of migrant workers in Hulan District

Since 2004, there has been the succession of migrant workers labor shortage all over the country. Among the factors causing farmers to hunt jobs in cities, wage plays a decisive role. So in this paper, it made an investigation and research on wages status and salary expectations of migrant workers in Hulan District. There are three main problems of migrant workers wages in Hulan District： The migrant workers＇ average wage is less than the community average wage; the wages were cut down in fact because of long working hours, as well as the low rate of return. In this district, the wage expectation of migrant workers on average is between 1341.8 and 1496.9 Yuan, that is 0.91-1.01 times as many as local minimum wage standard （after adding the overtime pay）; and 0.98-1.12 times as many as AVG salary last year. At last, it gives some suggestions： The enterprises should raise the standard of wages referring to the wage expectation of local migrant workers; local government should enhance skill trainings for migrant workers.     

A note on black-white wage disparity

Conclusion The evidence in this article helps to explain the black-white earnings differential in 1970, six years after the passage of Fair Employment Legislation, in terms of traditional measures such as experience and education along with a public policy measure that has of late come under fire. And contrary to the notion that the gains from such government policy have not benefited the less fortunate workers but simply accrued only, or mainly, to upper- or middle-class blacks, the results presented here indicate that enforcement, such as it is, has had beneficial effects for black men and women in virtually all major occupational categories. When a distinction is made between the various major occupational categories, the importance of education and experience as factors that contribute toward explaining black-white earnings differentials is generally supported by this study. However, neither education nor experience shows a consistent explanatory power across occupational categories and especially across the sexes. For example, experience is more frequently found to be a significant factor for black men than it is for black women. Education, on the other hand, was found to have no statistically significant relationship with wage differentials in major blue-collar job categories for both men and women, thus lending some credence to the dual labor market thesis regarding returns to education. By far the factor we have found to be the most consistent with respect to its impact upon racial wage differentials for both men and women is the fair employment variable. Indeed, across major occupational groups the existence and enforcement of fair employment laws seems to have had, generally, a more significant effect on reducing racial wage differentials than each of the other independent variables.     

加强对新经济梯度转移问题的研究

新经济崛起势不可挡 正从源头向世界各地梯度转移 一、新经济发展速度惊人 全球信息产业的市场规模已突破2万亿美元,其增长速度是全球经济的56倍,目前成为世界上最大的产业;上网的国家和地区从20世纪90年代中前期的22个上升到1999年底217个;全球互联网用户从1996年底4000万户增至1999年底2.59亿户,预计2005年     

More on advertising and monopoly power: The case of the electric utility industry

Summary With respect to R-H's conclusion, the authors stand by their original hypothesis and results given in their paper. Furthermore, although 1974 is likely a transitional year, it is more comparable to 1977 than to 1967. Thus, R-H's results support, rather than contradict, the results of the C-C study.     

Finnish mortality in the eighteenth century: A reply

Abstract

In SEHR No.2, 1978, Eino ]utikkala took issue on a number of points with my article published in SEHR No.2, 1977, and I should like to make several comments in reply, Firstly, I have found it misleading to call the results of my data adjustments as ‘correction coefficients’. This term tends to suggest that my corrections produce precise results, an impression which the caveats explicitly stated in my text were designed to prevent. My purpose was to provide a rough suggestion of, and an approximation to the extent of errors, since it would have profited no one had I concluded the study with the simple acknowledgment of gaps in the registers and the admission that there is no way of determining their extent. Because this type of research is still relatively new, and because there seemed to be no other way of assessing the number of infants who died below one year of age, but were omitted from the registers of ‘baptised’ and ‘buried’, the national figures were used for the corrections, and an attempt was made to ensure that this approach did not lead to an overestimation of error.