Minimum wage and the labor market

[pmichaillat]

There is a lot of work on the minimum wage. Here are some papers on the topic:

• A recent survey of the minimum-wage research by Neumark, Shirley (2022)
• Another survey by Manning (2021)
• Dube, Lindner (2021): the paper looks at the effect of local minimum-wage laws
• Fishback, Seltzer (2021): this paper looks at the history of the minimum wage in the US
• Machin, Manning, Rahman (2003): the authors look at the impact of the introduction of the minimum wage in the UK

I hope this helps for the research projects!

[pmichaillat]

A key paper on the minimum wage that we discussed today is Card, Krueger (1994). The abstract is as follows:

On April 1, 1992, New Jersey's minimum wage rose from $4.25 to $5.05 per hour. To evaluate the impact of the law we surveyed 410 fast-food restaurants in New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania before and after the rise. Comparisons of employment growth at stores in New Jersey and Pennsylvania (where the minimum wage was constant)provide simple estimates of the effect of the higher minimum wage. We also compare employment changes at stores in New Jersey that were initially paying high wages (above $5) to the changes at lower-wage stores. We find no indication that the rise in the minimum wage reduced employment.

This is a key paper in that literature, so new work on the effects of the minimum wage should connect to it.

I have also added a chapter on youth unemployment and the minimum wage to the repo. It is very informative and contrasts evidence from France and the United States.