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The Impact of the Minimum Wage If Workers Can Adjust Effort

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  • Ippolito, Richard A

Abstract

In traditional models, a binding minimum wage creates a excess supply of low-skilled workers for minimum-wage jobs. Employment falls, and some jobs are reallocated from high- to low-rent workers. This disequilibrium cannot persist. Competition to secure the property rights to now-scarce jobs undoes most of the effects of the minimum wage. Workers who attach the highest value to the jobs are willing to work harder to keep them; marginal workers are squeezed out of the market as high-rent workers ratchet up effort level. This process erodes the rent conferred by the minimum wage but also increases the value of marginal product, which reduces the size of the employment effect. The minimum wage confers more money income on low-skilled workers and creates some distortion in the optimum combination of wage rate and effort level. Under plausible conditions, the minimum wage has little effect on rent, employment, output, and profits.

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  • Ippolito, Richard A, 2003. "The Impact of the Minimum Wage If Workers Can Adjust Effort," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 46(1), pages 207-227, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlawec:y:2003:v:46:i:1:p:207-27
    DOI: 10.1086/374706
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    1. Barry T. Hirsch & Bruce E. Kaufman & Tetyana Zelenska, 2015. "Minimum Wage Channels of Adjustment," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(2), pages 199-239, April.
    2. Jeffrey Clemens, 2021. "How Do Firms Respond to Minimum Wage Increases? Understanding the Relevance of Non-employment Margins," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 35(1), pages 51-72, Winter.
    3. Giulio Pedrini, 2017. "Law and economics of training: a taxonomy of the main legal and institutional tools addressing suboptimal investments in human capital development," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 43(1), pages 83-105, February.
    4. Kyota Eguchi, 2010. "Minimum Wages and Trainers' Dilemma," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 24(2), pages 128-138, June.
    5. Roberta Sisto & Giustina Pellegrini & Piermichele La Sala, 2019. "Dual quality food: A negative social externality or a competitiveness opportunity?," Agricultural Economics, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 65(7), pages 307-313.
    6. Eguchi, Kyota, 2004. "Minimum wages enhancing trainers’ incentives," ISER Working Paper Series 2004-18, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    7. Deltas, George, 2007. "Can a minimum wage increase employment and reduce prices in a neoclassical perfect information economy?," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(6), pages 657-674, August.
    8. Bruce E. Kaufman, 2010. "Institutional Economics and the Minimum Wage: Broadening the Theoretical and Policy Debate," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 63(3), pages 427-453, April.
    9. Steven G. Medema, 2020. "The Coase Theorem at Sixty," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(4), pages 1045-1128, December.
    10. Casey B. Mulligan & Kevin K. Tsui, 2016. "The Upside-down Economics of Regulated and Otherwise Rigid Prices," NBER Working Papers 22305, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Meiselbach, Mark K. & Abraham, Jean M., 2023. "Do minimum wage laws affect employer-sponsored insurance provision?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).

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