Suchergebnisse

AbstractTo estimate the impact of raising the minimum wage on employment, this article uses a natural experiment, arising from six increases in the Western Australian statutory minimum wage during the period 1994–2001. Relative to the rest of Australia, the employment to population ratio in Western Australia fell following each of the six rises, twice by a statistically significant margin. Aggregating the increases, the elasticity of labour demand with respect to the Western Australian statutory minimum wage is found to be −0.13.

We analyze the impact on wages of the adoption of a rent‐sharing remuneration scheme aimed at making labor institutions more flexible. We work within a quasi‐experimental setting referring to a sample of Italian companies before and after the introduction of the Treu Reform (1997). Our estimations confirm that this reform not only increased insider workers' wages via rent‐sharing, but also fueled a σ−convergence process of the rent‐sharing elasticity across the sectors at a different rate. Finally, we deliver a reasoned discussion of the consequences of implementing this reform on the Italian job market. This reform produced advances in the quality of job remuneration but it deepened a structural gap in the Italian labor market composition.