IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wdevel/v116y2019icp77-99.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Minimum wage impacts on wages and hours worked of low-income workers in Ecuador

Author

Listed:
  • Wong, Sara A.

Abstract

Minimum-wage policy aims to raise the real income of low-wage workers. Low-wage individuals may be adversely affected by minimum wages, however, although the empirical evidence on this point is not without controversy. We analyzed the effects of the January 2012 increase in monthly minimum wages on the wages and hours worked of low-wage workers in Ecuador. Individuals could have chosen to enter occupations covered by minimum-wage legislation or those that were not. We applied a difference-in-differences estimation to account for potential self-selection bias. We also relied on exogenous variations in minimum wages by sector, industry, and occupation. We constructed individual panel data from a household panel and performed estimates that also accounted for potential sample-selection bias. The results suggest a significant and positive effect on the wages of treated workers, increasing them by 0.41–0.48% for each 1% increase in minimum wages, relative to the earnings of control workers. Our results also suggest that effects varied by type of worker: (i) women workers received lower wage increases, and their hours worked were significantly and negatively affected, both of which may suggest a failure of the minimum wage to reduce the gender wage gap at the bottom of the distribution, and (ii) the hours worked by young workers were significantly and positively affected, a result that is in agreement with results found elsewhere in the literature. These results persisted after applying robustness checks to account for different control groups, full- vs. part-time jobs, separate regressions for heterogeneous groups, and tests for potential attrition and sample-selection bias. The range of effects observed across disparate groups of workers suggests areas in which policy change could be useful. The income-compression effect we found suggests that further studies should address the effects of minimum wage on the drop in income inequality observed in the data.

Suggested Citation

  • Wong, Sara A., 2019. "Minimum wage impacts on wages and hours worked of low-income workers in Ecuador," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 77-99.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:116:y:2019:i:c:p:77-99
    DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.12.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X18304327
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.12.004?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James J. Heckman & Carmen Pagés, 2004. "Law and Employment: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number heck04-1, June.
    2. James J. Heckman, 1976. "The Common Structure of Statistical Models of Truncation, Sample Selection and Limited Dependent Variables and a Simple Estimator for Such Models," NBER Chapters, in: Annals of Economic and Social Measurement, Volume 5, number 4, pages 475-492, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. 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.
    4. Charles Brown & Curtis Gilroy & Andrew Kohen, 1982. "The Effect of the Minimum Wage on Employment and Unemployment: A Survey," NBER Working Papers 0846, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. David Card, 1992. "Do Minimum Wages Reduce Employment? A Case Study of California, 1987–89," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 46(1), pages 38-54, October.
    6. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2101-2163 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Gindling, T.H. & Terrell, Katherine, 2005. "The effect of minimum wages on actual wages in formal and informal sectors in Costa Rica," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(11), pages 1905-1921, November.
    8. David Neumark & J. M. Ian Salas & William Wascher, 2014. "Revisiting the Minimum Wage—Employment Debate: Throwing Out the Baby with the Bathwater?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 67(3_suppl), pages 608-648, May.
    9. Machin, Stephen & Manning, Alan & Rahman, Lupin, 2002. "Where the minimum wage bites hard: the introduction of the UK national minimum wage to a low wage sector," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20070, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. Pablo Fajnzylber, 2001. "Minimum Wage Effects Throughout the Wage Distribution: Evidence from Brazil's Formal and Informal Sectors," Anais do XXIX Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 29th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 098, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    11. Brown, Charles, 1999. "Minimum wages, employment, and the distribution of income," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 32, pages 2101-2163, Elsevier.
    12. Gindling, T.H. & Terrell, Katherine, 2009. "Minimum wages, wages and employment in various sectors in Honduras," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 291-303, June.
    13. Alan B. Krueger & David Card, 2000. "Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1397-1420, December.
    14. Belman, Dale. & Wolfson, Paul J., 2016. "What does the minimum wage do in developing countries? : A review of studies and methodologies," ILO Working Papers 994893283402676, International Labour Organization.
    15. William Maloney & Jairo Mendez, 2004. "Measuring the Impact of Minimum Wages. Evidence from Latin America," NBER Chapters, in: Law and Employment: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean, pages 109-130, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Squire, Lyn & Suthiwart-Narueput, Sethaput, 1997. "The Impact of Labor Market Regulations," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 11(1), pages 119-143, January.
    17. Janet Currie & Bruce C. Fallick, 1996. "The Minimum Wage and the Employment of Youth Evidence from the NLSY," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 31(2), pages 404-428.
    18. Brown, Charles & Gilroy, Curtis & Kohen, Andrew, 1982. "The Effect of the Minimum Wage on Employment and Unemployment," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 20(2), pages 487-528, June.
    19. Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2009. "Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 8769.
    20. Gindling, T.H. & Terrell, Katherine, 2007. "The effects of multiple minimum wages throughout the labor market: The case of Costa Rica," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 485-511, June.
    21. Gindling, T. H. & Terrell, Katherine, 1995. "The nature of minimum wages and their effectiveness as a wage floor in Costa Rica, 1976-1991," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 23(8), pages 1439-1458, August.
    22. Neumark, David & Cunningham, Wendy & Siga, Lucas, 2006. "The effects of the minimum wage in Brazil on the distribution of family incomes: 1996-2001," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 136-159, June.
    23. Mark B. Stewart & Joanna K. Swaffield, 2008. "The Other Margin: Do Minimum Wages Cause Working Hours Adjustments for Low‐Wage Workers?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 75(297), pages 148-167, February.
    24. Claudio Montenegro & Carmen Pagés, 2005. "Who Benefits from Labor Market Regulations? Chile 1960-1998," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Jorge Restrepo & Andrea Tokman R. & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series Edi (ed.),Labor Markets and Institutions, edition 1, volume 8, chapter 4, pages 077-114, Central Bank of Chile.
    25. Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2009. "Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 5-86, March.
    26. Gindling, T.H. & Terrell, Katherine, 2010. "Minimum Wages, Globalization, and Poverty in Honduras," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 908-918, June.
    27. Sara Lemos, 2007. "A Survey of the Effects of the Minimum Wage in Latin America," Discussion Papers in Economics 07/04, Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester.
    28. Dickens, Richard & Machin, Stephen & Manning, Alan, 1999. "The Effects of Minimum Wages on Employment: Theory and Evidence from Britain," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(1), pages 1-22, January.
    29. Pablo Fajnzylber, 2001. "Minimum wage effects throughout the wage distribution: evidence from Brazil’s formal and informal sectors," Textos para Discussão Cedeplar-UFMG td151, Cedeplar, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais.
    30. Lemos, Sara, 2009. "Minimum wage effects in a developing country," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 224-237, April.
    31. Neumark, David & Wascher, William L., 2007. "Minimum Wages and Employment," Foundations and Trends(R) in Microeconomics, now publishers, vol. 3(1–2), pages 1-182, March.
    32. Ben Yahmed, Sarra, 2018. "Formal but Less Equal. Gender Wage Gaps in Formal and Informal Jobs in Urban Brazil," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 73-87.
    33. Katherine Terrell & Rita K. Almeida, 2008. "Minimum Wages in Developing Countries : Helping or Hurting Workers?," World Bank Publications - Reports 11742, The World Bank Group.
    34. Claudio Montenegro & Carmen Pagés, 2005. "Who Benefits from Labor Market Regulations? Chile 1960-1998," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series,in: Jorge Restrepo & Andrea Tokman R. & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series Edi (ed.), Labor Markets and Institutions, edition 1, volume 8, chapter 4, pages 077-114 Central Bank of Chile.
    35. Ham, Andrés, 2018. "The Consequences of Legal Minimum Wages in Honduras," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 135-157.
    36. Sara Lemos, 2004. "Minimum Wage Policy and Employment Effects: Evidence from Brazil," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Fall 2004), pages 219-266, August.
    37. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    38. Carlos A.Arango & Angélica Pachón, 2004. "Minimum Wages in Colombia: Holding the Middle With a Bite on the Poor," Borradores de Economia 280, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    39. Stephen Machin & Alan Manning & Lupin Rahman, 2003. "Where the Minimum Wage Bites Hard: Introduction of Minimum Wages to a Low Wage Sector," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(1), pages 154-180, March.
    40. Zadia M. Feliciano, 1998. "Does the Minimum Wage Affect Employment in Mexico?," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 24(2), pages 165-180, Spring.
    41. Carlos Arango & Angélica Pachón, 2004. "Minimum Wages in Colombia: Holding the Middle with a Bite," Borradores de Economia 3224, Banco de la Republica.
    42. Zavodny, Madeline, 2000. "The effect of the minimum wage on employment and hours," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(6), pages 729-750, November.
    43. Wendy Cunningham, 2007. "Minimum Wages and Social Policy : Lessons from Developing Countries," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 6760.
    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. Jaerim Choi & Ivan Rivadeneyra & Kenia Ramirez, 2021. "Labor Market Effects of a Minimum Wage: Evidence from Ecuadorian Monthly Administrative Data," CESifo Working Paper Series 8987, CESifo.
    2. Ren, Yanjun & Peng, Yanling & Campos, Bente Castro & Li, Houjian, 2021. "Higher minimum wage, better labour market returns for rural migrants? Evidence from China," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 34(1), pages 1814-1835.
    3. Pérez Pérez, Jorge, 2020. "The minimum wage in formal and informal sectors: Evidence from an inflation shock," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    4. Campos-Vazquez Raymundo M. & Delgado Victor & Rodas Alexis, 2020. "The effects of a place-based tax cut and minimum wage increase on labor market outcomes," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Sciendo & Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 10(1), pages 1-24, March.
    5. Eréndira León Bravo, 2022. "Three essays on education, wages, and the labour market in Mexico," Economics PhD Theses 0322, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.

    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. Sara Wong, 2017. "Minimum wage impacts on wages and hours worked of low-income workers in Ecuador," Working Papers PMMA 2017-14, PEP-PMMA.
    2. Lemos, Sara, 2009. "Minimum wage effects in a developing country," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 224-237, April.
    3. Neumark, David & Munguía Corella, Luis Felipe, 2021. "Do minimum wages reduce employment in developing countries? A survey and exploration of conflicting evidence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    4. Fernando Alberto Groisman & Albano Blas Vergara & Analía Calero & Julia Liniado & María Eugenia Sconfienza & Maria Soledad Cubas & Santiago Boffi, 2015. "Social Protection to the Informal Sector: The Role of Minimum Wage and Income Transfer Policies," Working Papers PMMA 2015-10, PEP-PMMA.
    5. David Neumark & William Wascher, 2006. "Minimum Wages and Employment: A Review of Evidence from the New Minimum Wage Research," NBER Working Papers 12663, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Arindrajit Dube & Attila Lindner, 2024. "Minimum Wages in the 21st Century," RF Berlin - CReAM Discussion Paper Series 2425, Rockwool Foundation Berlin (RF Berlin) - Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).
    7. Cuong Viet Nguyen, 2013. "The impact of minimum wages on employment of low-wage workers," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 21(3), pages 583-615, July.
    8. Meghan J. Millea & Jon P. Rezek & Brian Shoup & Joshua Pitts, 2017. "Minimum Wages in a Segmented Labor Market: Evidence from South Africa," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 335-359, September.
    9. Gindling, T.H. & Terrell, Katherine, 2010. "Minimum Wages, Globalization, and Poverty in Honduras," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 908-918, June.
    10. Alaniz, Enrique & Gindling, T.H. & Terrell, Katherine, 2011. "The impact of minimum wages on wages, work and poverty in Nicaragua," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(S1), pages 45-59.
    11. Sotomayor, Orlando J., 2021. "Can the minimum wage reduce poverty and inequality in the developing world? Evidence from Brazil," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    12. Haroon Bhorat & Ravi Kanbur & Benjamin Stanwix, 2017. "Minimum Wages in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Primer," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 32(1), pages 21-74.
    13. Marlies Piek & Dieter von Fintel, 2020. "Sectoral minimum wages in South Africa: Disemployment by firm size and trade exposure," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(3), pages 462-482, May.
    14. Katzkowicz, Sharon & Pedetti, Gabriela & Querejeta, Martina & Bergolo, Marcelo, 2021. "Low-skilled workers and the effects of minimum wage in a developing country: Evidence based on a density-discontinuity approach," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    15. Gindling, T.H. & Terrell, Katherine, 2007. "The effects of multiple minimum wages throughout the labor market: The case of Costa Rica," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 485-511, June.
    16. Long, Cheryl & Yang, Jin, 2016. "How do firms respond to minimum wage regulation in China? Evidence from Chinese private firms," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 267-284.
    17. Sharon Katzkowicz & Gabriela Pedetti & Martina Querejeta & Marcelo Bérgolo, 2019. "Low-Skilled Workers and the Effects of Minimum Wage: New Evidence Based on a Density-Discontinuity Approach," Working Papers PMMA 2019-10, PEP-PMMA.
    18. Uma Rani, 2017. "Minimum Wage Policies and Their Effects in Developing Countries: A Comparative Perspective," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 60(1), pages 33-55, March.
    19. Ham, Andrés, 2018. "The Consequences of Legal Minimum Wages in Honduras," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 135-157.
    20. Tomas Kucera, 2020. "Are Employment Effects of Minimum Wage the Same Across the EU? A Meta-Regression Analysis," Working Papers IES 2020/2, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, revised Jan 2020.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Minimum wage; Difference-in-difference; Hours worked; Heterogeneous effects; Latin America; Ecuador;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand
    • J38 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Public Policy

    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:eee:wdevel:v:116:y:2019:i:c:p:77-99. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev .

    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.