Minimum wages: possible effects on the distribution of income
Since the 1980s, there has been increased interest among unions and two opposition parties in the possibility of introducing a national minimum wage (NMW). The central argument for a minimum wage is a social justice one: a minimum wage is deemed necessary to prevent some employers exploiting workers with little bargaining power by paying them less than the value of the goods and services they produce. The aim of this paper is to establish what sort of people might be affected by a minimum wage, how this might have changed over time and how far a minimum wage can be used as a tool to redistribute income from the rich to the poor. No attempt is made to simulate the effect of a NMW on employment and prices, and obviously any complete analysis needs to take these effects into account. Recent research (see the discussion below) on this issue, however, indicates little evidence that a `moderate\\\' minimum will have any effect on employment and it is thus likely that the ‘first-round effects\\\' described in this paper are informative.
Volume (Year): 17 (1996)
Issue (Month): 4 (November)
|Contact details of provider:|| Postal: |
Phone: (+44) 020 7291 4800
Fax: (+44) 020 7323 4780
Web page: http://www.ifs.org.uk
More information through EDIRC
|Order Information:|| Postal: The Institute for Fiscal Studies 7 Ridgmount Street LONDON WC1E 7AE|
References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
- David Card & Alan B. Krueger, 1993.
"Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania,"
NBER Working Papers
4509, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Card, David & Krueger, Alan B, 1994. "Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 772-93, September.
- David Card & Alan Krueger, 1993. "Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania," Working Papers 694, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
- Chris Trinder, 1995. "What about the Public Sector?," New Economy, Institute for Public Policy Research, vol. 2(4), pages 228-232, December.
- Richard Dickens & Alan Manning, 1995. "After Wages Councils," New Economy, Institute for Public Policy Research, vol. 2(4), pages 223-227, December.
- Brown, Charles & Gilroy, Curtis & Kohen, Andrew, 1982. "The Effect of the Minimum Wage on Employment and Unemployment," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 20(2), pages 487-528, June.
- Susan Harkness, 1996. "The gender earnings gap: evidence from the UK," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 17(2), pages 1-36, May.
- Stephen Machin & Alan Manning, 1994.
"The effects of minimum wages on wage dispersion and employment: Evidence from the U.K. Wages Councils,"
Industrial and Labor Relations Review,
ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 47(2), pages 319-329, January.
- Stephen Machin & Alan Manning, 1994. "The Effects of Minimum Wages on Wage Dispersion and Employment: Evidence from the U.K. Wages Councils," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 47(2), pages 319-329, January.
- repec:cup:cbooks:9780521367288 is not listed on IDEAS
- McClements, L. D., 1977. "Equivalence scales for children," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 191-210, October.
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ifs:fistud:v:17:y:1996:i:4:p:31-48. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Stephanie Seavers)
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.