Minimum Wages and Youth Employment: Evidence from the Finnish Retail Trade Sector

Petri Böckerman () and Roope Uusitalo ()

British Journal of Industrial Relations, 2009, vol. 47, issue 2, pages 388-405

Abstract: Following an agreement between the trade unions and the employer organizations in 1993, Finnish employers could temporarily pay less than the existing minimum wage for young workers. We examine the effects of these minimum wage exceptions by comparing the changes in wages and employment of the groups whose minimum wages were reduced with simultaneous changes among slightly older workers for whom the minimum wages remained unchanged. Our analysis is based on payroll record data and minimum wage agreements from the retail trade sector. The results show that average wages in the eligible group declined only modestly. We find no significant effects on employment. Copyright (c) Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2009.

Date: 2009

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8543.2009.00720.x link to full text (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Minimum wages and youth employment: Evidence from the Finnish retail trade sector (2007)
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: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:brjirl:v:47:y:2009:i:2:p:388-405

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0007-1080

Access Statistics for this article

British Journal of Industrial Relations is edited by Edmund Heery

More articles in British Journal of Industrial Relations from Blackwell Publishers Ltd/London School of Economics
Series data maintained by Christopher F. Baum ().