Discussion paper

DP6892 Restaurant Prices and the Minimum Wage

We examine the effect of the minimum wage on restaurant prices. For that purpose, we estimate a price rigidity model by exploiting a unique dataset of individual price quotes used to calculate the Consumer Price Index in France. We find a positive and significant impact of the minimum wage on prices. We obtain that the effect of the minimum wage on prices is very protracted. The aggregate impact estimated with our model takes more than a year to fully pass through to retail prices.

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Citation

Fougère, D, and E Gautier (2008), ‘DP6892 Restaurant Prices and the Minimum Wage‘, CEPR Discussion Paper No. 6892. CEPR Press, Paris & London. https://cepr.org/publications/dp6892