Do minimum wages reduce employment in developing countries? A survey and exploration of conflicting evidence

David Neumark and Luis Felipe Munguía Corella

World Development, 2021, vol. 137, issue C

Abstract: Evidence from studies of the employment effects of minimum wages in developing countries is mixed. One interpretation is that there is simply no clear evidence of disemployment effects in developing countries. Instead, however, we find evidence that the heterogeneity is systematic, with estimated effects more consistently negative in studies with relatively more features for which institutional factors and the competitive model more strongly predict negative effects. These features include whether studies: (i) focus on vulnerable workers; (ii) use data for the formal sector; (iii) cover countries where minimum wage laws are strongly enforced; and (iv) estimate effects for countries and periods with binding minimum wages.

Keywords: Minimum wage; Employment; Meta-analysis; Competitive model; Institutional factors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X20302928
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Do Minimum Wages Reduce Employment in Developing Countries? A Survey and Exploration of Conflicting Evidence (2019)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:137:y:2021:i:c:s0305750x20302928

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105165

Access Statistics for this article

World Development is currently edited by O. T. Coomes

More articles in World Development from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().