The ambiguous effect of minimum wages on hours

Eric Strobl () and Frank Walsh

Open Access publications from School of Economics, University College Dublin

Abstract: In a competitive model we ease the assumption that efficiency units of labour are the product of hours and workers. We show that a minimum wage may either increase or decrease hours per worker and the change will have the opposite sign to the slope of the equilibrium hours hourly wage locus. Similarly, total hours worked may rise or fall. We illustrate the results throughout with a Cobb-Douglas example.

Keywords: Minimum wages; Hours; Employment; McDonald, Ronald Monopsonies; Working hours; Legislation; Competition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J22 J38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 11 pages
Date: 2011-04
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Published in: Labour Economics, 18(2) 2011-04

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http://hdl.handle.net/10197/8051 Open Access version, 2011 (application/pdf)

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Journal Article: The ambiguous effect of minimum wages on hours (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucn:oapubs:10197/8051

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