IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ifs/ifsewp/10-09.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Minimum wage setting and standards of fairness

Author

Listed:
  • David A. Green

    (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University of British Colombia)

  • Kathryn Harrison

    (Institute for Fiscal Studies)

Abstract

We examine the setting of minimum wages, arguing that they can best be understood as a reflection of voters' notions of fairness. We arrive at this conclusion through an empirical investigation of the implications of three models, considered in the context of policy setting by sub-units in a federation: a competing interests group model; a constrained altruism model; and a fairness based model. In the latter model, voters are interested in banning what they view to be unfair transactions, with the notion of fairness based on comparisons to the "going" unskilled wage. We use data on minimum wages set in the ten Canadian provinces from 1969 to 2005 to carry out the investigation. A key implication of the models that is borne out in the data is that minimum wages should be set as a positive function of the location of the unskilled wage distribution. Together, the results indicate that minimum wages are set according to a "fairness" standard and that this may exacerbate movements in inequality.

Suggested Citation

  • David A. Green & Kathryn Harrison, 2010. "Minimum wage setting and standards of fairness," IFS Working Papers W10/09, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:10/09
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ifs.org.uk/wps/wp1009.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chappell, Henry W. & Keech, William R., 1986. "Policy Motivation and Party Differences in a Dynamic Spatial Model of Party Competition," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 80(3), pages 881-899, September.
    2. Jan K. Brueckner, 2003. "Strategic Interaction Among Governments: An Overview of Empirical Studies," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 26(2), pages 175-188, April.
    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. Koichi Fukumura & Atsushi Yamagishi, 2020. "Minimum wage competition," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(6), pages 1557-1581, December.
    2. Braun Helge & Döhrn Roland & Krause Michael & Micheli Martin & Schmidt Torsten, 2020. "Macroeconomic Long-Run Effects of the German Minimum Wage when Labor Markets are Frictional," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 240(2-3), pages 351-386, April.
    3. Braun, Helge & Döhrn, Roland & Krause, Michael & Micheli, Martin & Schmidt, Torsten, 2020. "Macroeconomic Long-Run Effects of the German Minimum Wage when Labor Markets are Frictional," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, pages 351-386.
    4. Kate Rybczynski & Anindya Sen, 2018. "Employment Effects Of The Minimum Wage: Panel Data Evidence From Canadian Provinces," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 36(1), pages 116-135, January.
    5. Arindrajit Dube, 2019. "Minimum Wages and the Distribution of Family Incomes," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 268-304, October.

    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. Sandy Fréret & Denis Maguain, 2017. "The effects of agglomeration on tax competition: evidence from a two-regime spatial panel model on French data," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 24(6), pages 1100-1140, December.
    2. Kristien Werck & Bruno Heyndels & Benny Geys, 2008. "The impact of ‘central places’ on spatial spending patterns: evidence from Flemish local government cultural expenditures," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 32(1), pages 35-58, March.
    3. Padovano, Fabio & Petrarca, Ilaria, 2014. "Are the responsibility and yardstick competition hypotheses mutually consistent?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 459-477.
    4. Asmae AQZZOUZ & Michel DIMOU, 2022. "Tax mimicking in French counties," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 55, pages 113-132.
    5. Alexander Klemm & Stefan Parys, 2012. "Empirical evidence on the effects of tax incentives," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(3), pages 393-423, June.
    6. Edoardo Di Porto & Vincent Merlin & Sonia Paty, 2013. "Cooperation among local governments to deliver public services : a "structural" bivariate response model with fixed effects and endogenous covariate," Working Papers halshs-00787600, HAL.
    7. Sung Hoon Kang & Mark Skidmore & Laura Reese, 2015. "The Effects of Changes in Property Tax Rates and School Spending on Residential and Business Property Value Growth," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 43(2), pages 300-333, June.
    8. Karen Crabbé, 2013. "Are Your Firm´s Taxes Set in Warsaw? Spatial Tax Competition in Europe," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 69(3), pages 317-337, September.
    9. Revelli, Federico & Tovmo, Per, 2007. "Revealed yardstick competition: Local government efficiency patterns in Norway," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 121-134, July.
    10. Federico Revelli, 2012. "Business taxation and economic performance in hierarchical government structures," Working Papers 2012/12, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    11. George Crowley & Russell Sobel, 2011. "Does fiscal decentralization constrain Leviathan? New evidence from local property tax competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 149(1), pages 5-30, October.
    12. Cuéllar Martín, Jaime & Martín-Román, Ángel L. & Moral, Alfonso, 2017. "A composed error model decomposition and spatial analysis of local unemployment," MPRA Paper 79783, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Huang, Wei, 2019. "Forest condition change, tenure reform, and government-funded eco-environmental programs in Northeast China," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 67-74.
    14. Mohanty, Biswajit & Bhanumurthy, N. R. & Dastidar, Ananya Ghosh, 2017. "What explains Regional Imbalances in Infrastructure?: Evidence from Indian States," Working Papers 17/197, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
    15. Quentin Frère & Matthieu Leprince & Sonia Paty, 2014. "The Impact of Intermunicipal Cooperation on Local Public Spending," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(8), pages 1741-1760, June.
    16. Bordignon, Massimo & Cerniglia, Floriana & Revelli, Federico, 2004. "Yardstick competition in intergovernmental relationships: theory and empirical predictions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 325-333, June.
    17. Ohad Raveh, 2013. "Dutch Disease, factor mobility, and the Alberta Effect: the case of federations," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 46(4), pages 1317-1350, November.
    18. Sylvie Charlot & Sonia Paty & Virginie Piguet, 2015. "Does Fiscal Cooperation Increase Local Tax Rates in Urban Areas?," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(10), pages 1706-1721, October.
    19. Brulhart, Marius & Jametti, Mario, 2006. "Vertical versus horizontal tax externalities: An empirical test," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(10-11), pages 2027-2062, November.
    20. Alejandro Esteller & Amedeo Piolatto & Matthew D. Rablen, 2016. "Taxing high-income earners: tax avoidance and mobility," IFS Working Papers W16/07, Institute for Fiscal Studies.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J38 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Public Policy
    • H73 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Interjurisdictional Differentials and Their Effects
    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation

    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:ifs:ifsewp:10/09. 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: Emma Hyman (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ifsssuk.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.