The Impact of the Minimum Wage on Working Hours

Burauel Patrick (), Marco Caliendo, Markus Grabka, Obst Cosima (), Preuss Malte () and Carsten Schröder
Additional contact information
Burauel Patrick: DIW Berlin/SOEP, Berlin, Germany
Obst Cosima: University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
Preuss Malte: Free University Berlin, Berlin, Germany

Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), 2020, vol. 240, issue 2-3, 233-267

Abstract: The present paper analyzes how the statutory minimum wage introduced on January 1, 2015, has affected working hours in Germany up to 2016. The data used come from the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), which provides not only contractual working hours but also actual hours worked. Using a difference-in-differences estimation approach, we find a significant and robust reduction in contractual working hours among employees who are subject to social security contributions and earned less than the minimum wage before the introduction. The effect in 2015 is about −5 % and corresponds to a 1.7 hours reduction in average weekly working hours. The effect on actual hours is smaller and estimated less precisely. Extending the analysis until 2016 does not yield significant effects on contractual or actual working hours, while some specifications reject the common trend assumption.

Keywords: minimum wage; working hours; DiD estimation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J23 J38 J81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/jbnst-2018-0081 (text/html)

Related works:
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:jns:jbstat:v:240:y:2020:i:2-3:p:233-267:n:6

DOI: 10.1515/jbnst-2018-0081

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik) is currently edited by Peter Winker

More articles in Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik) from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().