Raising the Bar: Minimum Wages and Employers' Hiring Standards

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Butschek, Sebastian
• 署名单位: University of Innsbruck
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-ECONOMIC POLICY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7731
• DOI: 10.1257/pol.20190534
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 91-124
• 关键词: employment; substitution; workers; FLOWS

摘要

Many scholars have studied the employment effects of minimum wages, but little is known about effects on the composition of hires. I investigate whether Germany's minimum wage introduction raised hiring standards, using worker fixed effects as a proxy for worker productivity. For the least productive workers hired, the minimum wage led to a 4 percentile point shift in the productivity distribution. This increase is missed using standard observable measures of worker productivity. The effects are larger with greater pre-reform screening intensity-indicating an employer response. This more selective hiring compensates about two-thirds of higher wage costs for the least productive hires.