DP2452 The Role Of The Minimum Wage In The Welfare State: An Appraisal
Author(s): | Juan J. Dolado, Florentino Felgueroso, Juan F Jimeno |
Publication Date: | May 2000 |
Keyword(s): | Employment, Inequality, Minimum Wages |
JEL(s): | J31 |
Programme Areas: | Labour Economics |
Link to this Page: | cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=2452 |
In order to offer a balanced assessment of the role of minimum wages in the Welfare State, seven basic questions need to be answered: (i) Why is the minimum wage a useful redistributive tool?; (ii) How binding are minimum wage floors in different countries?; (iii) To what extent do minimum wages have the adverse consequences that standard analysis predict?; (iv) Are there strong theoretical grounds underlying the revisionist results?; (v) Who supports minimum wages?; (vi) Under which conditions is the minimum wage a better tool than other policy instruments to achieve income redistribution?; and, finally, (vii) What is the overall cross-country time-series evidence regarding the employment effect of the minima? The aim in this paper is to provide an appraisal on the available evidence for each of the above-mentioned issues.