Wage inequality, minimum wage effects, and spillovers

Mark Stewart

Oxford Economic Papers, 2012, vol. 64, issue 4, 616-634

Abstract: This paper investigates possible spillover effects of the UK minimum wage. The halt in the growth in inequality in the lower half of the wage distribution (as measured by the 50:10 percentile ratio) since the mid-1990s, in contrast to the continued inequality growth in the upper half of the distribution, suggests the possibility of a minimum wage effect and spillover effects on wages above the minimum. This paper analyses individual wage changes, using both a difference-in-differences estimator and a specification involving comparisons across minimum wage upratings, and concludes that there have not been minimum wage spillovers. Since the UK minimum wage has always been below the 10-super-th percentile, this lack of spillovers implies that minimum wage changes have not had an effect on the 50:10 percentile ratio measure of inequality in the lower half of the wage distribution. Copyright 2012 Oxford University Press 2012 All rights reserved, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (45)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/oep/gps003 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Wage Inequality, Minimum Wage Effects and Spillovers (2011)
Working Paper: Wage Inequality, Minimum Wage Effects and Spillovers (2011)
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:oup:oxecpp:v:64:y:2012:i:4:p:616-634

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Oxford Economic Papers is currently edited by James Forder and Francis J. Teal

More articles in Oxford Economic Papers from Oxford University Press Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().