Minimum wages and employment in Swedish hotels and restaurants

This paper considers the effects of union-bargained minimum wages on transitions into and out of employment in the hotels and catering industry over the period 1979–99. This industry is characterised by a high fraction of unskilled labour input, high worker turnover and binding minimum wages. The empirical approach identifies workers affected by real minimum wage increases and decreases, respectively. Job separations and accessions for the treatment groups are then contrasted to the outcomes for control groups, with wages marginally above those of the treatment groups. Unlike previous studies, this paper also considers same-period transitions for same-wage workers who are unaffected by minimum wage changes. This procedure should help to control for unobserved differences between high- and low-wage workers and is made possible by the diversified minimum wage structure of the industry. According to the results, job separations tend to increase with rising minimum wages (except for teenagers during 1993–98). The evidence regarding accessions is less conclusive.     

Minimum wages in Spain

In Spain the minimum wage appears to have no significant employment-reducing effect for workers over 18. For the under 18s, however, minimum wages and employment are negatively related. The government should consider lowering the minimum wage for younger workers.     

Minimum wages and training

The paper analyzes the influence of minimum wages on firms' incentive to train their employees. We show that this influence rests on two countervailing effects: minimum wages (i) augment wage compression and thereby raise firms' incentives to train and (ii) reduce the profitability of employees, raise the firing rate and thereby reduce training. Our analysis shows that the relative strength of these two effects depends on the employees' ability levels. Our striking result is that minimum wages give rise to skills inequality: a rise in the minimum wage leads to less training for low-ability workers and more training for those of higher ability. In short, minimum wages create a ”low-skill trap.” We indicate that this effect may be important empirically. Finally, including workers' incentives to train themselves makes no major difference to our results.     

Payroll taxes,wages and employment: Identification through policy changes

This paper investigates the effect of changes in payroll taxes on wages and employment in Argentina. The analysis, based on administrative data, focuses on the impact of a series of major changes in payroll taxes which varied across geographical areas. This setup offers two main advantages over previous studies. First, using longitudinal data, the variation in tax rates across space and time provides a plausible source of identification of their effects on employment and wages. Second, the use of legal tax rates for each area at each point in time provides a remedy for the measurement error bias raised by the use of empirical rates constructed from observed tax and wage bills. Once this bias is accounted for, the results indicate that changes in payroll tax rates are only partially shifted onto wages, and they point to the absence of any significant effect on employment.     

Better protected,better paid: Evidence on how employment protection affects wages

This paper empirically establishes the effect of the employer's term of notice on the wage level of employees. The term of notice is defined as the period an employer has to notify workers in advance of their upcoming dismissal. The wages paid during this period are an important element of firing costs and hence employment protection. To find a causal effect, I exploit the exogenous change in the term of notice that resulted from the introduction of a new Dutch law in 1999. Strong evidence is found that a longer ‘dormant’ term of notice leads to higher wages. In my sample, an additional month of notice increases wages by three percent, ceteris paribus.     

Minimum wages and unemployment: the reform of the Wages Councils

Government policy has fallen short of total abolition of wages councils. In this article the authors argue that whilst reforming the wages councils might result in young workers getting jobs at the expense of older workers there is no evidence to suggest that cutting adult wages will increase the level of employment.     

The impact of minimum wages on wages,work and poverty in Nicaragua

In this paper we use an individual- and household-level panel data set to study the impact of changes in legal minimum wages on a host of labor market outcomes including: a) wages and employment, b) transitions of workers across jobs (in the covered and uncovered sectors) and employment status (unemployment and out of the labor force), and c) transitions into and out of poverty. We find that changes in the legal minimum wage affect only those workers whose initial wage (before the change in minimum wages) is close to the minimum. For example, increases in the legal minimum wage lead to significant increases in the wages and decreases in employment of private covered sector workers who have wages within 20% of the minimum wage before the change, but have no significant impact on wages in other parts of the distribution. The estimates from the employment transition equations suggest that the decrease in covered private sector employment is due to a combination of layoffs and reductions in hiring. Most workers who lose their jobs in the covered private sector as a result of higher legal minimum wages leave the labor force or go into unpaid family work; a smaller proportion find work in the public sector. We find no evidence that these workers become unemployed.Our analysis of the relationship between the minimum wage and household income finds: a) increases in legal minimum wages increase the probability that a poor worker's family will move out of poverty, and b) increases in legal minimum wages are more likely to reduce the incidence of poverty and improve the transition from poor to non-poor if they impact the head of the household rather than the non-head; this is because the head of the household is less likely than a non-head to lose his/her covered sector employment due to a minimum wage increase and because those heads that do lose covered sector employment are more likely to go to another paying job than are non-heads (who are more likely to go into unpaid family work or leave the labor force).     

Training,productivity and wages in Italy

This paper presents for the first time panel evidence on the productivity and wage effects of training in Italy. It is based on an original dataset which has been created aggregating individual-level data on training with firm-level data on productivity and wages into an industry panel covering all sectors of the Italian economy for the years 1996–1999. I use several modelling specifications and a variety of panel data techniques to argue that training significantly boosts productivity. However, no such effect is uncovered for wages. This seems to suggest that firms do actually reap more of the returns.     

Choice of employment status and the wages of employees and the self-employed: Some further evidence

Using US data drawn from the 1978 young men NLS sample, this paper replicates a key finding reported by Rees and Shah in their analysis of self-employment using large-scale British data. A wage equation, which allows for sample selectivity, is estimated for subsamples of employees and the self-employed. Despite differences between the data sets and the variables analysed, the NLS results support Rees and Shah's conclusion that there is positive selection bias in the observed earnings of employees.     

The consequences of private equity acquisitions for employees: new evidence on the impact on wages,employment and productivity

There is growing controversy on the HR consequences of private equity acquisitions, especially when the existing management team is replaced. Much of the debate thus far has centred on the use of limited panels of case studies and industry surveys. This article, in contrast, uses both in‐depth interviews with relevant stakeholders and objective company data to compare firms subject to private equity acquisitions against a control group of non‐acquired firms. Our interviews provide insights into key issues that are investigated in the subsequent empirical analysis. Our core findings are that firms subject to a specific type of private equity acquisition – institutional buyouts – are associated with job losses, lower wages and lower productivity. This evidence is consistent with the notion that this type of private equity acquisition has negative employment consequences without any corresponding improvement in productivity.     

Seniority,experience, and wages in the UK

This paper uses BHPS data to investigate the relative importance of seniority and experience in determining male wages in the UK labor market. Using both the Altonji and Shakotko instrumental variable and the Topel two-step estimation approaches, I find that for all male workers, tenure plays a modest role, increasing wages by about 1% each year over the first 10 years on the job. General labor market experience has a larger role, so that after 30 years wages have increased by about 60%. Individual and job match heterogeneity are important, and should be carefully modeled when estimating wage equations for the British labor market. These results are remarkably similar to the most recent evidence about these relationships in the US labor market. After extending the standard model to include industry and occupation experience, the estimated impact of job seniority becomes negligible for nonunion workers. Instead, the wages of nonunion workers rise because of the accumulation of general and sector-specific experience. The wages of union workers are still found to increase with job seniority over the first ten years with their employer, suggesting that if seniority matters for wages it is only for union workers.     

The intensity of land use in urban employment sectors: Chicago 1956–1970

Net employment density and net floor space density (floor area ratio) in four employment sectors are examined for metropolitan Chicago in 1956 and 1970. The study also includes the formation and preliminary evaluation of a model of land-use intensity.     

Individual contracting,collective bargaining and wages in Australia

We examine wages in Australia under federally registered individual contracts and collective agreements (CAs) using unpublished data from a national earnings survey. The distribution of earnings under registered individual contracts was more unequal than under CAs. Average and median earnings under registered individual contracts were lower than under CAs. There was little evidence that individual contracting raised wages through raising productivity. The link between contracting and pay appears contingent, varying between occupations, industries, and firm size bands and dependent upon employees' position in the labour market and employers' use of union avoidance strategies. This has implications for the interpretation of studies of union wage effects.     

The effect of state maternity leave legislation and the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act on employment and wages

In 1993, President Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Similar to the 12 states that already had maternity leave mandates, the FMLA guarantees 12 weeks of unpaid leave for eligible mothers. I evaluate the effects of maternity leave legislation on employment and wages, taking advantage of variation created by state legislation and the FMLA. My results show that maternity leave legislation has small and statistically insignificant effects on employment and wages. Maternity leave legislation may have little effect because the mandated leave is short and unpaid and many employers provided maternity leave benefits prior to the statutes.     

Workplace surveillance,privacy protection,and efficiency wages

Consider an employer who wants her employee to work hard. As is well known from the efficiency wage literature, the employer must pay the (wealth-constrained) employee a positive rent to provide incentives for exerting unobservable effort. Alternatively, the employer could make effort observable by costly workplace surveillance. It is argued that a privacy protection law preventing surveillance may increase the total surplus. While such a law reduces the employer's profit, this loss can be overcompensated by the employee's gain, because the employer invests in surveillance not only to implement higher effort, but also to reduce the employee's rent.     

Prices and wages

The early part of 2014 has seen a further slowdown in inflation, with the CPI rate falling to 1.6% in March, the slowest pace since late‐2009. Sliding petrol and energy prices have played a significant role in the decline, as has the cooling in food price inflation. The impact of higher university fees has also eased relative to a year ago, further pulling down on the headline rate…     

Noncognitive skills, occupational attainment, and relative wages

This paper examines whether men's and women's noncognitive skills influence their occupational attainment and, if so, whether this contributes to the disparity in their relative wages. We find that noncognitive skills have a substantial effect on the probability of employment in many, though not all, occupations in ways that differ by gender. Consequently, men and women with similar noncognitive skills enter occupations at very different rates. Women, however, have lower wages on average not because they work in different occupations than men do, but rather because they earn less than their male colleagues employed in the same occupation. On balance, women's noncognitive skills give them a slight wage advantage. Finally, we find that accounting for the endogeneity of occupational attainment more than halves the proportion of the overall gender wage gap that is unexplained.     

Prices and wages

CPI inflation has settled in a range of 2½–3% since last autumn, well above the 2% target. That inflation has remained high is largely due to last October's increase in university tuition fees, substantial rises in domestic energy bills at the turn of the year and high inflation in food prices…     

Prices and wages

Since last autumn, inflation appears to have settled into a range between 2½ and 3%. The fact that inflation has remained above target is largely due to a combination of last October's increase in university tuition fees, substantial rises in domestic energy bills at the turn of the year and high food price inflation…