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Welfare Effects of Minimum Wage and Other Government Policies

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  • Golan, Amos
  • Perloff, Jeffrey M.
  • Wu, Ximing

Abstract

The minimum wage, unlike most government transfer programs, lowered welfare in the 1980s and 1990s as measured by all commonly used welfare or inequality measures, including various Atkinson indexes, the Gini index, standard deviation of logarithms, and others. The effects of most government programs, macroeconomic variables, and aggregate demographic characteristics were qualitatively the same for all the inequality measures.

Suggested Citation

  • Golan, Amos & Perloff, Jeffrey M. & Wu, Ximing, 2001. "Welfare Effects of Minimum Wage and Other Government Policies," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt36r7v1cr, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:agrebk:qt36r7v1cr
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    1. Taiwo Aderemi, 2017. "Minimum Wage and the Working Poor in Nigeria: Is there a Link?," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 60(3), pages 481-499, September.
    2. Ying, Yung-hsiang & Lee, Wenli & Chang, Koyin, 2020. "Mandate-based welfare policies and the effect on real wage – The case of Taiwan," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 417-427.
    3. Scott Adams & David Neumark, 2005. "Living Wage Effects: New and Improved Evidence," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 19(1), pages 80-102, February.

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