Effect of Minimum Wages on Human Capital Formation

Jacob Mincer and Linda S. Leighton

No 441, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: The hypothesis that minimum wages tend to discourage on the job training is largely supported by our empirical analysis. Direct effects on reported job training and corollary effects on wage growth as estimated in microdata of the National Longitudinal Samples (NLS) and Michigan Income Dynamics (MID) are consistently negative and stronger at lower education levels. Apart from a single exception, no effects are observable among the higher wage group whose education exceeds high school. The effects on job turnover are: a decrease in turnover among young NLS whites, but an increase among young NLS blacks and MID whites. Whether these apparently conflicting findings on turnover reflect a distinction between short and long run adjustments in jobs is a question that requires further testing.

Date: 1980-02
Note: PR
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Published as Mincer, Jacob and Leighton, Linda. "Effect of Minimum Wages on Human Capital Formation." The Economy of Legal Minimum Wages, edited by S. Rottenberg. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1981.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w0441.pdf (application/pdf)

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:nbr:nberwo:0441

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w0441

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().