IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/13996.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Minimum Wages and Firm Profitability

Author

Listed:
  • Mirko Draca
  • Stephen Machin
  • John Van Reenen

Abstract

Although there is a large literature on the economic effects of minimum wages on labour market outcomes (especially employment), there is much less evidence on their impact on firm performance. In this paper we consider a very under-studied area - the impact of minimum wages on firm profitability. The analysis exploits the changes induced by the introduction of a national minimum wage to the UK labour market in 1999, using pre-policy information on the distribution of wages to construct treatment and comparison groups and implement a difference in differences approach. We report evidence showing that firm profitability was significantly reduced (and wages significantly raised) by the minimum wage introduction. This emerges from separate analyses of two distinct types of firm level panel data (one on firms in a very low wage sector, UK residential care homes, and a second on firms across all sectors). We find that net entry rates have fallen, but that the changes in exit and entry rates are statistically insignificant.

Suggested Citation

  • Mirko Draca & Stephen Machin & John Van Reenen, 2008. "Minimum Wages and Firm Profitability," NBER Working Papers 13996, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13996
    Note: LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w13996.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Metcalf, 2002. "The National Minimum Wage: Coverage, Impact and Future," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 64(supplemen), pages 567-582, December.
    2. 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.
    3. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2101-2163 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. John Van Reenen, 1996. "The Creation and Capture of Rents: Wages and Innovation in a Panel of U. K. Companies," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(1), pages 195-226.
    5. Nicholas Bloom & John Van Reenen, 2007. "Measuring and Explaining Management Practices Across Firms and Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(4), pages 1351-1408.
    6. 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.
    7. repec:bla:obuest:v:64:y:2002:i:0:p:567-82 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. 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.
    9. John Dinardo & Thomas Lemieux, 1997. "Diverging Male Wage Inequality in the United States and Ganada, 1981–1988: Do Institutions Explain the Difference?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 50(4), pages 629-651, July.
    10. David Card, 1992. "Using Regional Variation in Wages to Measure the Effects of the Federal Minimum Wage," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 46(1), pages 22-37, October.
    11. repec:bla:obuest:v:64:y:2002:i:s1:p:567-582 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. Machin, Stephen & Van Reenen, John, 1993. "Profit Margins and the Business Cycle: Evidence from UK Manufacturing Firms," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(1), pages 29-50, March.
    15. Denis Fougère & Erwan Gautier & Hervé Le Bihan, 2010. "Restaurant Prices and the Minimum Wage," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(7), pages 1199-1234, October.
    16. Daniel Aaronson & Eric French, 2007. "Product Market Evidence on the Employment Effects of the Minimum Wage," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(1), pages 167-200.
    17. Stephen Nickell & D Nicolitsas, 1994. "Wages," CEP Discussion Papers dp0219, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    18. Slade, Margaret E., 2004. "Competing models of firm profitability," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 289-308, March.
    19. Richard Blundell & Monica Costa Dias & Costas Meghir & John Van Reenen, 2001. "Evaluating the employment impact of a mandatory job search assistance program," IFS Working Papers W01/20, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    20. Mirko Draca & Stephen Machin & John Van Reenen, 2011. "Minimum Wages and Firm Profitability," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 129-151, January.
    21. David Card, 1992. "Using Regional Variation in Wages to Measure the Effects of the Federal Minimum Wage," Working Papers 680, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    22. Stephen R. Bond & Jason G. Cummins, 2000. "The Stock Market and Investment in the New Economy: Some Tangible Facts and Intangible Fictions," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 31(1), pages 61-124.
    23. Timothy Besley & Robin Burgess, 2004. "Can Labor Regulation Hinder Economic Performance? Evidence from India," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 91-134.
    24. David Neumark & Olena Nizalova, 2007. "Minimum Wage Effects in the Longer Run," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(2).
    25. Bloom, Nick & Dorgan, Stephen & Dowdy, John & Van Reenen, John & Rippin, Tom, 2005. "Management practices across firms and nations," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 4669, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    26. Sara Lemos, 2008. "A Survey Of The Effects Of The Minimum Wage On Prices," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 187-212, February.
    27. Philippe Aghion & Nick Bloom & Richard Blundell & Rachel Griffith & Peter Howitt, 2005. "Competition and Innovation: an Inverted-U Relationship," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(2), pages 701-728.
    28. Ashenfelter, Orley & Smith, Robert S, 1979. "Compliance with the Minimum Wage Law," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(2), pages 333-350, April.
    29. repec:fth:prinin:300 is not listed on IDEAS
    30. Stephen Machin & Alan Manning, 2004. "A Test of Competitive Labor Market Theory: The Wage Structure among Care Assistants in the South of England," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 57(3), pages 371-385, April.
    31. 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.
    32. Stephen Machin & Joan Wilson, 2004. "Minimum wages in a low-wage labour market: Care homes in the UK," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(494), pages 102-109, March.
    33. Stephen Machin & Alan Manning, 1994. "The Effects of Minimum Wages on Wage Dispersion and Employment: Evidence from the U.K. Wages Councils," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 47(2), pages 319-329, January.
    34. Menezes-Filho, Naercio Aquino, 1997. "Unions and Profitability over the 1980s: Some Evidence on Union-Firm Bargaining in the United Kingdom," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 107(442), pages 651-670, May.
    35. James J. Heckman & Hidehiko Ichimura & Petra E. Todd, 1997. "Matching As An Econometric Evaluation Estimator: Evidence from Evaluating a Job Training Programme," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 64(4), pages 605-654.
    36. Stephen Machin & Alan Manning, 1992. "Minimum Wages," CEP Discussion Papers dp0080, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    37. Richard Dickens & Alan Manning, 2004. "Has the national minimum wage reduced UK wage inequality?," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 167(4), pages 613-626, November.
    38. John T. Addison & Claus Schnabel (ed.), 2003. "International Handbook of Trade Unions," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2705.
    39. Richard Blundell & Monica Costa Dias & Costas Meghir & John Van Reenen, 2004. "Evaluating the Employment Impact of a Mandatory Job Search Program," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(4), pages 569-606, June.
    40. Thomas Lemieux, 2006. "Increasing Residual Wage Inequality: Composition Effects, Noisy Data, or Rising Demand for Skill?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 461-498, June.
    41. Daniel Aaronson, 2001. "Price Pass-Through And The Minimum Wage," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(1), pages 158-169, February.
    42. repec:bla:obuest:v:64:y:2002:i:s1:p:583-605 is not listed on IDEAS
    43. repec:bla:obuest:v:64:y:2002:i:0:p:583-605 is not listed on IDEAS
    44. David Neumark & William Wascher, 1992. "Employment Effects of Minimum and Subminimum Wages: Panel Data on State Minimum Wage Laws," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 46(1), pages 55-81, October.
    45. 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.
    46. Fisher, Franklin M & McGowan, John J, 1983. "On the Misuse of Accounting Rates of Return to Infer Monopoly Profits," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(1), pages 82-97, March.
    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. Brian Bell & Stephen Machin, 2018. "Minimum Wages and Firm Value," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(1), pages 159-195.
    2. 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.
    3. Dale Belman & Paul Wolfson & Kritkorn Nawakitphaitoon, 2015. "Who Is Affected by the Minimum Wage?," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(4), pages 582-621, October.
    4. Schumann, Mathias, 2017. "The effects of minimum wages on firm-financed apprenticeship training," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 163-181.
    5. Arindrajit Dube & Attila Lindner, 2024. "Minimum Wages in the 21st Century," RF Berlin - CReAM Discussion Paper Series 2524, Rockwool Foundation Berlin (RF Berlin) - Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).
    6. Lemos, Sara, 2004. "A Menu of Minimum Wage Variables for Evaluating Wages and Employment Effects: Evidence from Brazil," IZA Discussion Papers 1069, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Sebastian Link, 2019. "The Price and Employment Response of Firms to the Introduction of Minimum Wages," CESifo Working Paper Series 7575, CESifo.
    8. Lemos Sara, 2005. "Political Variables as Instruments for the Minimum Wage," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-31, December.
    9. Zsófia L. Bárány, 2016. "The Minimum Wage and Inequality: The Effects of Education and Technology," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(1), pages 237-274.
    10. Daniel B. Klein & Stewart Dompe, 2007. "Reasons for Supporting the Minimum Wage: Asking Signatories of the "Raise the Minimum Wage" Statement," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 4(1), pages 125-167, January.
    11. Sara Lemos, 2004. "The Effects of the Minimum Wage on Prices in Brazil," Labor and Demography 0403011, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Rizov, Marian & Croucher, Richard & Lange, Thomas, 2016. "The UK national minimum wage's impact on productivity," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 27(4), pages 819-835.
    13. Peter Dolton, 2012. "The administration and impact of a national minimum wage: lessons for Germany," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 45(3), pages 201-208, December.
    14. José Azar & Emiliano Huet & Ioana Marinescu & Bledi Taska & Till von, 2024. "Minimum Wage Employment Effects and Labour Market Concentration," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 91(4), pages 1843-1883.
    15. János Köllö, 2010. "Hungary: The Consequences of Doubling the Minimum Wage," Chapters, in: Daniel Vaughan-Whitehead (ed.), The Minimum Wage Revisited in the Enlarged EU, chapter 8, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Neumark David, 2019. "The Econometrics and Economics of the Employment Effects of Minimum Wages: Getting from Known Unknowns to Known Knowns," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 20(3), pages 293-329, August.
    17. 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.
    18. Filiz Gülal & Adam Ayaita, 2020. "The Impact of Minimum Wages on Well-Being: Evidence from a Quasi-experiment in Germany," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 21(7), pages 2669-2692, October.
    19. Kunaschk, Max, 2024. "The effects of minimum wages on employment and prices—Evidence from the hairdressing sector," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    20. Zsofia Barany, 2011. "The minimum wage and inequality - the effects of education and technology," SciencePo Working papers hal-01069474, HAL.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand
    • L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance

    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:nbr:nberwo:13996. 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/nberrus.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.