IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ijethy/v18y2022i3p247-271.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Minimum wage, firm dynamics, and wage inequality: Theory and evidence​

Author

Listed:
  • Chi‐Chur Chao
  • Mong Shan Ee
  • Xuan Nguyen
  • Eden S. H. Yu

Abstract

This paper investigates the distributive and welfare impacts of increasing minimum wage in an economy with imperfect competition. In the short run without entry/exit of manufacturing firms, an increase in the urban minimum wage reduces the skilled–unskilled wage gap but worsens unemployment and welfare in the economy. In the long run, a higher minimum wage induces firms to exit the urban manufacturing sector, thereby releasing capital to the rural agricultural sector. This can yield double dividends by further narrowing wage inequality and improving social welfare. Empirical results based on data from 43 selected countries confirm our theoretical findings.

Suggested Citation

  • Chi‐Chur Chao & Mong Shan Ee & Xuan Nguyen & Eden S. H. Yu, 2022. "Minimum wage, firm dynamics, and wage inequality: Theory and evidence​," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 18(3), pages 247-271, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ijethy:v:18:y:2022:i:3:p:247-271
    DOI: 10.1111/ijet.12307
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ijet.12307
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ijet.12307?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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 772-793, September.
    2. Robert E. Lucas Jr. & Benjamin Moll, 2014. "Knowledge Growth and the Allocation of Time," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 122(1), pages 1-51.
    3. Carl Lin & Myeong-Su Yun, 2016. "The Effects of the Minimum Wage on Earnings Inequality: Evidence from China," Research in Labor Economics, in: Income Inequality Around the World, volume 44, pages 179-212, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    4. M. ALl KHAN, 1980. "Dynamic Stability, Wage Subsidies and the Generalized Harris-Todaro Model," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 19(1), pages 1-24.
    5. Matias Braun & Claudio Raddatz, 2008. "The Politics of Financial Development: Evidence from Trade Liberalization," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(3), pages 1469-1508, June.
    6. Gian Luca Clementi & Berardino Palazzo, 2016. "Entry, Exit, Firm Dynamics, and Aggregate Fluctuations," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 1-41, July.
    7. Charles I. Jones & Jihee Kim, 2018. "A Schumpeterian Model of Top Income Inequality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(5), pages 1785-1826.
    8. Hai-Anh H. Dang & Michael M. Lokshin & Kseniya Abanokova & Maurizio Bussolo, 2020. "Welfare Dynamics and Inequality in the Russian Federation During 1994–2015," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 32(4), pages 812-846, September.
    9. Richard A. Brecher & Till Gross, 2018. "Employment gains from minimum†wage hikes under perfect competition: A simple general†equilibrium analysis," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(1), pages 165-170, February.
    10. Dwayne Benjamin & Loren Brandt & Brian McCaig, 2017. "Growth with equity: income inequality in Vietnam, 2002–14," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 15(1), pages 25-46, March.
    11. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2014. "Optimal Taxation of Top Labor Incomes: A Tale of Three Elasticities," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 230-271, February.
    12. Hamid Beladi & Chi‐Chur Chao & Mong Shan Ee & Daniel Hollas, 2020. "Urban development, excessive entry of firms and wage inequality in developing countries," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(1), pages 212-238, January.
    13. Fernando Borraz & Nicolás González-Pampillón, 2017. "Assessing the distributive effects of minimum wage," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(4), pages 1081-1112, November.
    14. David H. Autor & Alan Manning & Christopher L. Smith, 2016. "The Contribution of the Minimum Wage to US Wage Inequality over Three Decades: A Reassessment," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 58-99, January.
    15. Krugman, Paul R., 1979. "Increasing returns, monopolistic competition, and international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 469-479, November.
    16. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-00944873 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Chao, Chi-Chur & Yu, Eden S. H., 1992. "Capital markets, urban unemployment and land," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 407-413, April.
    18. Ronald W. Jones, 2018. "The Structure of Simple General Equilibrium Models," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: International Trade Theory and Competitive Models Features, Values, and Criticisms, chapter 4, pages 61-84, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    19. Quheng Deng, 2017. "Estimating the effect of minimum wage on firm profitability in China," Economic and Political Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(3), pages 326-341, July.
    20. Avinash Dixit, 1979. "A Model of Duopoly Suggesting a Theory of Entry Barriers," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 20-32, Spring.
    21. Bai, Xue & Chatterjee, Arpita & Krishna, Kala & Ma, Hong, 2021. "Trade and minimum wages in general equilibrium: Theory and evidence," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    22. Arindrajit Dube & T. William Lester & Michael Reich, 2016. "Minimum Wage Shocks, Employment Flows, and Labor Market Frictions," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(3), pages 663-704.
    23. Thomas Philippon & Ariell Reshef, 2012. "Wages and Human Capital in the U.S. Finance Industry: 1909--2006," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(4), pages 1551-1609.
    24. Xin Meng, 2012. "Labor Market Outcomes and Reforms in China," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 26(4), pages 75-102, Fall.
    25. Corden, W M & Findlay, Ronald, 1975. "Urban Unemployment, Intersectoral Capital Mobility and Development Policy," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 42(165), pages 59-78, February.
    26. Yabuuchi, Shigemi & Chaudhuri, Sarbajit, 2007. "International migration of labour and skilled-unskilled wage inequality in a developing economy," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 128-137, January.
    27. Neumark, David & Salas, J.M. Ian & Wascher, William, 2013. "Revisiting the Minimum Wage-Employment Debate: Throwing Out the Baby with the Bathwater?," IZA Discussion Papers 7166, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    28. Gupta, Manash Ranjan, 1994. "Foreign capital, income inequality and welfare in a Harris-Todaro model," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 407-414, December.
    29. Chi-Chur Chao & Eden S. H. Yu, 1997. "Trade Liberalization in Oligopolistic Competition with Unemployment: A General Equilibrium Analysis," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 30(2), pages 479-496, May.
    30. Arghya Ghosh & Hodaka Morita, 2007. "Free entry and social efficiency under vertical oligopoly," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(2), pages 541-554, June.
    31. Winfried Koeniger & Marco Leonardi & Luca Nunziata, 2007. "Labor Market Institutions and Wage Inequality," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 60(3), pages 340-356, April.
    32. Sugata Marjit & Hamid Beladi & Avik Chakrabarti, 2004. "Trade and Wage Inequality in Developing Countries," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 42(2), pages 295-303, April.
    33. Burdett, Kenneth & Mortensen, Dale T, 1998. "Wage Differentials, Employer Size, and Unemployment," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(2), pages 257-273, May.
    34. Ghosh, Arghya & Morita, Hodaka, 2007. "Social desirability of free entry: A bilateral oligopoly analysis," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 925-934, October.
    35. Mandal, Biswajit & Marjit, Sugata, 2010. "Corruption and wage inequality?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 166-172, January.
    36. Nirvikar Singh & Xavier Vives, 1984. "Price and Quantity Competition in a Differentiated Duopoly," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(4), pages 546-554, Winter.
    37. Xing, Chunbing & Zhang, Junfu, 2017. "The preference for larger cities in China: Evidence from rural-urban migrants," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 72-90.
    38. N. Gregory Mankiw & Michael D. Whinston, 1986. "Free Entry and Social Inefficiency," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 17(1), pages 48-58, Spring.
    39. Thorsten Beck & Asli Demirgüç-Kunt & Ross Levine, 2007. "Finance, inequality and the poor," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 27-49, March.
    40. Khan, M. Ali, 1980. "The Harris-Todaro hypothesis and the Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson trade model : A synthesis," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 527-547, November.
    41. Brander, James A. & Spencer, Barbara J., 1985. "Export subsidies and international market share rivalry," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1-2), pages 83-100, February.
    42. Sui Yang & Shi Li, 2017. "International financial crisis and wage inequality in urban China," Economic and Political Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(3), pages 342-357, July.
    43. Jonathan Haskel & Robert Z. Lawrence & Edward E. Leamer & Matthew J. Slaughter, 2012. "Globalization and U.S. Wages: Modifying Classic Theory to Explain Recent Facts," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 26(2), pages 119-140, Spring.
    44. Williamson, Jeffrey G., 1988. "Migration and urbanization," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Hollis Chenery & T.N. Srinivasan (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 11, pages 425-465, Elsevier.
    45. Henderson, Vernon, 2000. "How urban concentration affects economic growth," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2326, The World Bank.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dianshuang Wang & Hongyun Huang & Xin Zhao & Fang Fang, 2023. "Green technological progress, agricultural modernization, and wage inequality: Lessons from China," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 1673-1698, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yu, Eden S.H. & Chao, Chi-Chur, 2022. "Informal stall business, income inequality, and welfare in a dual economy," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 326-340.
    2. Eden S. H. Yu & Chi‐Chur Chao, 2022. "Online sales, home delivery, and the platform economy," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(3), pages 722-736, July.
    3. Chi‐Chur Chao & Leonard F. S. Wang, 2022. "Corporate governance, firm dynamics, and wage inequality," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 90(3), pages 341-353, June.
    4. Ee, Mong Shan & Chao, Chi-Chur & Liu, Xiangbo & Yu, Eden S.H., 2018. "Environmental policy, firm dynamics and wage inequality in developing countries," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 70-85.
    5. Hamid Beladi & Chi‐Chur Chao & Mong Shan Ee & Daniel Hollas, 2020. "Urban development, excessive entry of firms and wage inequality in developing countries," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(1), pages 212-238, January.
    6. Chi‐Chur Chao & May Hu & Xuan Nguyen, 2022. "Manufacturing capital utilisation, firm dynamics and wage inequality," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(12), pages 3947-3970, December.
    7. Sugata Marjit & Shrimoyee Ganguly & Rajat Acharyya, 2021. "Minimum wage, trade and unemployment in general equilibrium," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 17(1), pages 74-87, March.
    8. Chao, Chi-Chur & Trinh, Cong Tam & Nguyen, Xuan, 2023. "Carbon neutrality and wage inequality in a sustainable economy: New evidence from business dynamism," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    9. Leonard F. S. Wang & Ji Sun, 2023. "Corporate profit tax, firm entry with unemployment, and income inequality," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(2), pages 380-392, April.
    10. Mayneris, Florian & Poncet, Sandra & Zhang, Tao, 2018. "Improving or disappearing: Firm-level adjustments to minimum wages in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 20-42.
    11. M. Ali Khan, 2007. "The Harris-Todaro Hypothesis," Labor Economics Working Papers 22206, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    12. Masaharu Nagashima, 2018. "A condition for the reduction of urban unemployment in the Harris–Todaro model," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 2(1), pages 243-255, April.
    13. Ming Chung Chang & Hsiao‐Ping Peng, 2009. "Structure Regulation, Price Structure, Cross‐Subsidization And Marginal Cost Of Public Funds," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 77(6), pages 675-698, December.
    14. Pi, Jiancai & Zhang, Pengqing, 2016. "Hukou system reforms and skilled-unskilled wage inequality in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 90-103.
    15. Debasmita Basak & Emmanuel Petrakis, 2021. "Social efficiency of entry: Implications of network externalities," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 820-829, November.
    16. Arabzadeh, Hamzeh & Balleer, Almut & Gehrke, Britta & Taskin, Ahmet Ali, 2024. "Minimum wages, wage dispersion and financial constraints in firms," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    17. Pi Jiancai & Zhao Runzhi, 2020. "Corporate Social Responsibility and Wage Inequality," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 20(3), pages 1-16, July.
    18. Chaudhuri, Sarbajit & Mukhopadhyay, Ujjaini, 2009. "Revisiting the Informal Sector: A General Equilibrium Approach," MPRA Paper 52135, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Parenti, Mathieu, 2018. "Large and small firms in a global market: David vs. Goliath," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 103-118.
    20. Pi, Jiancai & Zhou, Yu, 2013. "Institutional quality and skilled–unskilled wage inequality," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 356-363.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ijethy:v:18:y:2022:i:3:p:247-271. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=1742-7355 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.