Effects of Increasing Minimum Wages on Employment and Hours: Evidence from Sweden’s Retail Sector

Arbeitspapier

This paper examines the effects of collectively agreed increases in real minimum wages on employment transitions and hours among manual workers in the Swedish retail sector over the period 2001–05. The findings indicate that increases in real minimum wages are associated with more separations, whereas hours are less affected because separated workers put in relatively fewer hours before being separated. Among the young, however, both employment and hours are negatively affected. Labour-labour substitution seems to be important, since increases in minimum wages promote employment among workers with higher wages than those directly affected by the increases. The assumptions of the econometric model were tested by imposing fictitious minimum wages on lower-level non-manuals in the same industry, with turnover characteristics similar to manuals but covered by a different collective agreement with non-binding actual minimum wages.

Objekt anzeigen

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: IFN Working Paper ; No. 869

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure ; Labor Demand ; Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
• Thema: Minimum wages ; Labour-labour substitution ; Employment ; Mindestlohn ; Wirkungsanalyse ; Beschäftigungseffekt ; Arbeitszeit ; Schweden

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Skedinger, Per
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)
• (wo): Stockholm
• (wann): 2011

Weitere Informationen

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/81363