IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/auu/dpaper/537.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Training, Minimum Wages and the Earnings Distribution

Author

Listed:
  • Alison Booth
  • Mark L. Bryan

Abstract

In this paper we highlight the relevance of work-related training to the minimum wage debate. We initially situate training incidence within the broader picture of the earnings distribution in Britain and demonstrate that lower-paid workers are less likely than workers towards the top of the hourly wage distribution to receive work-related training. We then show that work-related training is potentially important from a distributional standpoint, since it significantly increases individuals’ longer-term earning prospects. Next we report empirical results indicating that the introduction in 1999 of a national minimum wage in Britain had a small but statistically significant positive effect on subsequent training incidence for affected workers. In conclusion, we note that the available empirical evidence for Britain shows that minimum wages (i) are associated with a small increase in work-related training for the low paid and (ii) have not adversely affected the employment of British workers. We therefore suggest that the minimum wage has the potential to reduce wages inequality in the longer-term provided that it continues to be set at a level that does not threaten employment. This potential arises not just because of the direct and obvious effect of a minimum wage in increasing wages at the bottom of the distribution, but also through its more indirect effect on work-related training.

Suggested Citation

  • Alison Booth & Mark L. Bryan, 2006. "Training, Minimum Wages and the Earnings Distribution," CEPR Discussion Papers 537, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    • Handle: RePEc:auu:dpaper:537
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cbe.anu.edu.au/researchpapers/CEPR/DP537.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Simon Rottenberg, 1981. "The Economics of Legal Minimum Wages," Books, American Enterprise Institute, number 971842, September.
    2. Wiji Arulampalam & Alison L. Booth & Mark L. Bryan, 2004. "Training in Europe," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(2-3), pages 346-360, 04/05.
    3. L. Bryan, Mark & L. Booth, Alison & Arulampalam, Wiji, 2003. "Work-related training and the new National Minimum Wage in Britain -ISER Working Paper-," ISER Working Paper Series 2003-05, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    4. repec:bla:obuest:v:64:y:2002:i:s1:p:583-605 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Adam J. Grossberg & Paul Sicilian, 1999. "Minimum Wages, On-the-Job Training, and Wage Growth," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 65(3), pages 539-556, January.
    6. Daron Acemoglu & Jorn-Steffen Pischke, 1999. "The Structure of Wages and Investment in General Training," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(3), pages 539-572, June.
    7. repec:bla:obuest:v:64:y:2002:i:0:p:583-605 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Richard Blundell & Lorraine Dearden & Costas Meghir & Barbara Sianesi, 1999. "Human capital investment: the returns from education and training to the individual, the firm and the economy," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 20(1), pages 1-23, March.
    9. Melero Martín, Eduardo, 2004. "Evidence on Training and Career Paths: Human Capital, Information and Incentives," IZA Discussion Papers 1377, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. 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.
    11. Hart, Robert A. & Ritchie, Felix, 1999. "Tenure-based Wage Setting," IZA Discussion Papers 47, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Alison L. Booth & Gylfi Zoega, 2004. "Is wage compression a necessary condition for firm-financed general training?," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 56(1), pages 88-97, January.
    13. Neumark, David & Wascher, William, 2001. "Minimum Wages and Training Revisited," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(3), pages 563-595, July.
    14. Stevens, Margaret, 1994. "A Theoretical Model of On-the-Job Training with Imperfect Competition," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 46(4), pages 537-562, October.
    15. Mark B. Stewart, 2004. "The Impact of the Introduction of the U.K. Minimum Wage on the Employment Probabilities of Low-Wage Workers," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(1), pages 67-97, March.
    16. Sutherland, H., 2001. "The National Minimum Wage and In-work Poverty," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0111, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    17. Chang, Chun & Wang, Yijiang, 1996. "Human Capital Investment under Asymmetric Information: The Pigovian Conjecture Revisited," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 14(3), pages 505-519, July.
    18. Hashimoto, Masanori, 1982. "Minimum Wage Effects on Training on the Job," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(5), pages 1070-1087, December.
    19. Alison L. Booth & Mark L. Bryan, 2005. "Testing Some Predictions of Human Capital Theory: New Training Evidence from Britain," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(2), pages 391-394, May.
    20. Bassanini, Andrea & Booth, Alison L. & Brunello, Giorgio & De Paola, Maria & Leuven, Edwin, 2005. "Workplace Training in Europe," IZA Discussion Papers 1640, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Wiji Arulampalam & Alison L. Booth & Mark L. Bryan, 2004. "Training and the new minimum wage," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(494), pages 87-94, March.
    2. Rita Asplund, 2005. "The Provision and Effects of Company Training: A Brief Review of the Literature," Nordic Journal of Political Economy, Nordic Journal of Political Economy, vol. 31, pages 47-73.
    3. Dan A. Black & Lars Skipper & Jeffrey A. Smith & Jeffrey Andrew Smith, 2023. "Firm Training," CESifo Working Paper Series 10268, CESifo.
    4. Eguchi, Kyota, 2004. "Minimum wages enhancing trainers’ incentives," ISER Working Paper Series 2004-18, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    5. Schumann, Mathias, 2017. "The effects of minimum wages on firm-financed apprenticeship training," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 163-181.
    6. Alison L. Booth & Pamela Katic, 2011. "Men at Work in a Land Down‐Under: Testing Some Predictions of Human Capital Theory," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 49(1), pages 1-24, March.
    7. Kyota Eguchi, 2010. "Minimum Wages and Trainers' Dilemma," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 24(2), pages 128-138, June.
    8. Pfeifer, Christian & Janssen, Simon & Yang, Philip & Backes-Gellner, Uschi, 2010. "Training Participation of an Aging Workforce in an Internal Labor Market," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-447, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    9. Asplund, Rita, 2004. "The Provision and Effects of Company Training. A brief review of the literature," Discussion Papers 907, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    10. Bassanini, Andrea & Brunello, Giorgio, 2008. "Is training more frequent when the wage premium is smaller? Evidence from the European Community Household Panel," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 272-290, April.
    11. Balmaceda, Felipe, 2021. "A failure of the market for college education and on-the-job human capital," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    12. Jung-Seung Yang, 2022. "Dynamics of Firm’s Investment in Education and Training: An Agent-based Approach," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 60(4), pages 1317-1351, December.
    13. Giorgio Brunello & Maria De Paola, 2004. "Market Failures and the Under-Provision of Training," CESifo Working Paper Series 1286, CESifo.
    14. L. Bryan, Mark & L. Booth, Alison & Arulampalam, Wiji, 2003. "Work-related training and the new National Minimum Wage in Britain -ISER Working Paper-," ISER Working Paper Series 2003-05, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    15. Christian Dustmann & Uta Schönberg, 2009. "Training and Union Wages," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(2), pages 363-376, May.
    16. Bassanini, Andrea & Booth, Alison L. & Brunello, Giorgio & De Paola, Maria & Leuven, Edwin, 2005. "Workplace Training in Europe," IZA Discussion Papers 1640, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Daron Acemoglu & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2003. "Minimum Wages And On-The-Job Training," Research in Labor Economics, in: Worker Well-Being and Public Policy, pages 159-202, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    18. Gregory, Terry & Zierahn, Ulrich, 2022. "When the minimum wage really bites hard: The negative spillover effect on high-skilled workers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    19. Terry Gregory & Ulrich Zierahn, 2020. "When the Minimum Wage Really Bites Hard: Impact on Top Earners and Skill Supply," CESifo Working Paper Series 8540, CESifo.
    20. Daron Acemoglu & Jorn-Steffen Pischke, 1999. "The Structure of Wages and Investment in General Training," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(3), pages 539-572, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    work-related training; national minimum wage; earnings distribution;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:auu:dpaper:537. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cpanuau.html .

    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.