Die Einführung des flächendeckenden gesetzlichen Mindestlohns von 8,50 Euro ist ein großes, mit vielen sozialpolitischen Risiken verbundenes Experiment. Im ersten Teil dieses Übersichtsartikels zeigen wir, dass weder die unterschiedlichen theoretischen Erklärungsmodelle noch die große Anzahl empirischer Arbeiten aus anderen Ländern die Hoffnung rechtfertigen, der Mindestlohn würde in Deutschland keine substantiellen Beschäftigungsverluste mit sich bringen. Im zweiten Teil verwenden wir dann aktuelle Daten zur Lohnverteilung in Deutschland, um mit Hilfe einer Simulationsrechnung für die unterschiedlichen theoretischen Szenarien zu untersuchen, welche Beschäftigungsrisiken für unterschiedliche Zielgruppen durch die Einführung eines flächendeckenden Mindestlohns von 8,50 Euro drohen. Besonders stark betroffen sind die heutigen „Aufstocker“, die von der Mindestlohnerhöhung kaum etwas mit nach Hause nehmen können, aber in Zukunft einem ungleich höheren Arbeitsplatzrisiko ausgesetzt sind. Diese Befunde lassen zweifeln, dass die Politik mit dem Mindestlohn ihre erklärten Ziele einer erhöhten Verteilungsgerechtigkeit und der Entlastung der öffentlichen Haushalte erreichen kann.

The thesis discusses what it means to institute a minimum wage and the different types of wages in the Czech Republic. It also deals with an overview of changes in the minimum wage in selected countries of the European Union, and unemployment in the countries. To find out what you can buy for minimum wage are given consumer basket of major cities in selected countries. The next chapter deals with the influence of the minimum wage on unemployment. The conclusion discusses the possible impact of the minimum wage in the construction industry.

To many economists the public's support for the minimum wage (MW) institution is puzzling, since the MW is considered a "blunt instrument'' for redistribution. To delve deeper in this issue we build models in which workers are heterogeneous in ability. In the first model, the government does not engage in any type of redistributive policies - except for the payment of unemployment benefits; we find that the MW is preferred by the majority of workers (even when the unemployed receive very generous unemployment benefits). In the second model, the government engages in redistribution through the public provision of private goods. We show that (i) the introduction of a MW can be preferred by a majority of workers only if the unemployed receive benefits which are substantially below the after-tax earnings they would have had in the perfectly competitive case, (ii) for a given generosity of the unemployment benefit scheme, the maximum, politically viable, MW is lower than in the absence of in-kind redistribution, and (iii) the MW institution is politically viable only when there is a limited degree of in-kind redistribution. These findings can possibly explain why a well-developed social safety net in Scandinavia tends to co-exist with the absence of a national MW, whereas in Southern Europe the MW institution "complements'' the absence of a well-developed social safety net.

This dissertation studies the determinants of the spatial distribution of economic activity and how such activity is affected by public policy. The dissertation contains three chapters. In the first chapter, we ask: what role does labor market competitiveness play in determining the location decisions of firms and workers, and the resulting spatial wage distribution? To answer this question, we develop a model of monopsony power in spatial equilibrium. Workers and firms are free to locate in any labor market, and the degree of market power a firm enjoys depends on the number of competing firms in its location. We show the model can rationalize concentrations of economic activity and the city-size wage premium through an endogenous labor market competitiveness channel: in larger labor markets, endogenous firm entry increases labor market competition, decreasing wage markdowns and increasing equilibrium wages. To estimate the magnitude of labor market competitiveness differences across space, we utilize matched employer-employee data from Germany. Using a canonical empirical methodology from the labor economics literature on monopsony, we estimate that labor markets are significantly more competitive in larger cities. Calibrating the model to match this reduced-form evidence, we find endogenous labor market competitiveness can explain 37% of the city-size wage premium and 14% of all agglomeration. In the second chapter, we use the new framework developed in Chapter 1 to study the spatial and welfare implications of the 2015 German national minimum wage law. We first show a traditional spatial model that ignores variation in monopsony power across space predicts large unemployment effects in smaller, lower-wage labor markets, contradicting the reduced-form evidence on the effects of the law. Turning to our monopsony framework, we note that in the calibrated model, monopsony power is strongest in smaller, lower-wage labor markets: exactly those that the perfectly competitive model predicted would have the largest unemployment effects. Imposing the minimum wage in the calibrated monopsony framework, we find results in line with the reduced-form evidence — minimal unemployment effects, even in the lowest-wage labor markets, and therefore significant convergence in regional nominal wage inequality. Accounting for spatially-varying monopsony power, we find the enacted national law outperforms an alternative policy with a lower level of the minimum wage in East Germany, while a law that takes into account variation in productivity and competitiveness significantly outperforms both. In the third chapter (joint with Pablo Ernesto Warnes and Timur Abbiasov), we examine the effects of pedestrianization on business visits. There are significant debates in urban planning on the use of road space in cities. Should (some) streets be pedestrianized? Critics suggest closing streets to vehicles can harm local businesses by reducing access. The effect of pedestrianization on business visits has been difficult to assess due to the lack of an appropriate experiment and lack of systematic data on foot traffic. We examine a unique recent experiment, New York City's Open Streets program, which closed hundreds of street segments to cars, and utilize new anonymized cellphone geodata to measure visits to businesses. Using a matched difference-in-differences design, we find small effects of the program on visits overall, with sufficient precision to rule out significant negative effects, contradicting critics' predictions. We find significant positive effects on visits for Open Streets further from the Central Business District, especially for restaurants and bars. For such businesses, we find a 14% increase in visits as a result of the program.

<p>Food safety is important to prevent foodborne illnesses that can negatively affect public health and the economy. Preventative measures can be taken by government agencies, food-related workers, and consumers to reduce the occurrence of such illnesses. This paper examines the impact of government policies on food safety from the perspective of consumers, restaurant employees and employers, and food processing workers. The first essay explores how food safety recalls affect consumer behavior. The second essay studies the impact of minimum wage policies on service quality in the restaurant industry. The third essay investigates the effect of minimum wage policies on product food safety in the meat and poultry processing industry. </p>

The industrial revolution was the start of increasing technological advancements that are continuing to grow today. Technology improves accuracy, efficiency and is more productive in comparison to human labor as it does not require breaks and cannot violate any labor laws. With many innovations available today, firms have more options to choose from and can select the relatively cheaper solution. The push for a fifteen-dollar minimum wage affects the firm's options, and the use of technology might increasingly become the more viable choice. This study took data from the years 1993 to 2016 and created two regressions using the unemployment rate and job automation rate as the dependent variables. The independent variables looked at were the year, the population growth rate, the minimum wage, inflation, the gross domestic product growth rate, and the consumer price index. After normality checks and transformations were done two regressions were run, and the models were studied to determine the effects. Both regressions were found to be valid with f-statistics lower than one percent. All the statistically significant variables were retained in the model, and the insignificant variables were omitted to reproduce the regression and check for accuracy. The models with the lower Akaike's information criterion and Bayesian information criterion values were kept and used as the final models. Overall the regressions found that the year and consumer price index had the most substantial effects on the unemployment rate, and the consumer price index had the strongest effect on the automation rate. Limitations on the study include the data available, a possible lag in the effect of the minimum wage, and the possible inaccuracy in using industrial robot installation as a measure for job automation.

Bien qu'il soit désormais établi que les institutions du travail (tel que la syndicalisation et le salaire minimum) aient eu pour effet de réduire l'inégalité des salaires entre les travailleurs au Canada et dans d'autres pays industrialisés, leur impact sur l'inégalité des revenus entre les familles ou les ménages reste incertain. Cette étude a pour but d'estimer l'impact de la densité syndicale et du salaire minimum réel sur l'évolution de l'inégalité des revenus de marché entre les ménages canadiens durant les années 1981 à 2008. À partir d'une base de données qui intègre des données annuelles agrégées par province, et en maintenant constant un ensemble de facteurs, les estimations par effets fixes indiquent que la densité syndicale a réduit l'inégalité des revenus mesurée au moyen du coefficient de Gini, alors que le salaire minimum réel a plutôt eu pour effet d'accroître celle-ci. Les résultats d'estimation indiquent également que le taux d'activité et la scolarité moyenne sont les principaux facteurs à avoir réduit l'inégalité des revenus, alors que le taux de chômage, le changement technologique (mesuré de différentes façons) et l'immigration récente ont contribué à l'accroître. / While some consensus exists that labor institutions (such as unionization and minimum wage) narrowed wages inequality among workers in Canada, as well as in other industrialized countries, there is little agreement about their outcome on income inequality among families or households. This study investigates how union density and real minimum wage affected the evolution of market income inequality among Canadian households between 1981 and 2008. Utilizing a dataset that incorporates annual data aggregated by province, and holding constant for a range of other factors, fix effects estimates indicate that union density narrowed income inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient, while real minimum wage widened it instead. Estimates further suggest that participation rate and educational attainment are the main factors to have dampened income inequality in recent years, whereas unemployment rate, technological change (measured in different ways) and recent immigration are found to have contributed to greater income inequality.

WORKING POOR IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC Abstract Even though poverty is not the death or life question in developed countries it is necessary to pay attention to it. The topic of poverty, social cohesion and social exclusion plays now an increasing role in the EU agenda; working poor started to be explored in 1990s there. Working poor are people poor despite working. Work should serve as a protection of poverty, it should guarantee better living standard to employed people in comparison to those dependent on social protection. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to the issue of working poor, to identify them, to find out the reasons why they are poor and to develop measures to help them not to be poor. This thesis brings a comprehensive view on the working poor in the Czech Republic. The focus is on the poverty rate as well as characteristics of working poor. Methods for measuring this phenomenon have not been fully developed yet, there is still not a consensus on the most suitable methods. Different methods are introduced, compared and critically evaluated in the first - theoretically oriented - part of the thesis. Combination and modification of existing methods creates a base for methodology used in this thesis. The core part of the thesis is dedicated to the detailed analysis of working poor in the...

Analyses about aggregate employment, unemployment, and inactivity rates frequently disregard labor market trends of specific household members, which may explain some puzzles in the relationship between economic activity and labor market participation. The relevance of family approaches of labor supply transcends the aggregate macroeconomic trends and addresses important micro-level analysis concerning the behavior and intrahousehold decisions of members and policy-relevant results. Despite the consensus about the joint labor supply decisions of household members, studies are typically at the individual level and disregard sons and daughters as decision-makers in a family. Therefore, in this thesis, we investigate these questions for Brazil, in two studies. In the first study, we analyze the labor supply decisions of sons daughters aged 14 to 24 years living with their parents, in a reduced form exercise. We collaborate to the empirical literature about intrahousehold impacts of policies, testing whether the minimum wage, which affects the income of parents, impacts the final labor supply decisions of sons and daughters. We also verify if the policy has distinct effects depending on whether the eligible person is the father or the mother, aiming to test the income-pooling hypothesis. Our identification strategy is based on an intention-to-treat approach, and in a differences-in-differences estimator. Another innovation is the use of the PNADC (IBGE) for 2012-2016. We find that the direction and magnitude of the minimum wage effects affecting fathers and mothers, on the labor supply of sons and daughters, depend on who is and how many eligible members there exist in the household: it is negative, whether the eligible person is the mother or the father, and it is positive, whether both are eligible. Therefore, our results strengthen the argument in favor of household approaches, since the income pooling hypothesis does not seem to be valid in this context. In the second study, we investigate how the decisions about labor supply could determine the aggregate results of unemployment and inactivity of the secondary household earners. We develop and estimate a structural household job search model with on-the-job search. We extend Dey and Flinn (2008) to allow for unemployment and inactivity of mothers and sons and daughters who are subject to shocks to their employment and income shocks to fathers. These shocks may determine different search behavior and job acceptance, depending on the other household member\'s labor market situation. The model is estimated using the PME (IBGE) for 2004-2014. We perform counterfactual simulations, and we verify that the decreasing unemployment rate of sons/daughters would not have changed between 2004 and 2014 if the labor market opportunities and conditions of this member remain the same. The unemployment rate of mothers does not alter a lot in this period. The increasing trend in the inactivity of sons/daughters is mostly determined by a decreasing encouragement rate and the increasing dropout rate observed among these members in this period. These exogenous factors that determine the move to or the permanence in the inactivity could be related to the lower cost of education. We conclude that the use of individual job search models to understand aggregate unemployment and inactivity can be misleading, since the household search behavior matters in the labor supply decisions of secondary household earners. / As análises sobre taxas agregadas de emprego, desemprego e inatividade frequentemente ignoram a dinâmica dos membros das famílias no mercado de trabalho, a qual pode explicar puzzles na relação entre atividade econômica e participação no mercado de trabalho. A relevância das abordagens familiares para a oferta de trabalho está nas análises macroeconômicas sobre tendências agregadas, e também em análises microeconômicas do comportamento, decisões intrafamiliares e resultados de políticas. Apesar do consenso sobre as decisões conjuntas de oferta de trabalho dos membros da família, grande parte dos estudos são abordagens individuais e desconsideram filhos jovens como tomadores de decisão. Nesta tese, organizada em dois estudos, investigamos essas questões para o Brasil. No primeiro estudo, analisamos a decisão de ofertar trabalho de jovens entre 14 e 24 anos vivendo com os pais, em um exercício de forma reduzida. A tese colabora com a literatura empírica sobre os efeitos intrafamiliares de políticas, ao testar se o salário mínimo que afeta a renda dos pais impacta a decisão final dos filhos de ofertar trabalho. Também testamos a hipótese de agregação da renda, ao verificar se se a política tem efeitos distintos caso a pessoa elegível na família seja a mãe ou o pai. A estratégia de identificação é baseada em uma abordagem de intention-to-treat, e no uso do estimador de diferenças-em-diferenças. Outra inovação é o uso da PNADC (IBGE) para 2012-2016. Verificamos que a direção e a magnitude dos efeitos do salário mínimo dos pais, na oferta de trabalho dos filhos, dependem de quem é e de quantos são os membros elegíveis na família: o efeito é negativo, se a pessoa elegível é a mãe ou o pai, e é positivo, se ambos são elegíveis. Esses resultados reforçam o argumento em favor das abordagens intrafamiliares, uma vez que a hipótese de income-pooling não parece ser válida neste contexto. No segundo estudo, investigamos como as decisões de oferta de trabalho poderiam determinar os resultados agregados de desemprego e inatividade dos membros secundários. Desenvolvemos e estimamos um modelo estrutural de busca por emprego familiar com on-the-jobsearch. Estendemos o modelo de Dey e Flinn (2008), para permitir desemprego e inatividade de mães e filhos, sujeitos a choques em seus empregos e choques na renda dos pais. Esses choques podem determinar diferentes comportamentos de busca e aceitação de emprego, dependendo da situação do outro membro no mercado de trabalho. O modelo é estimado com a PME (IBGE) para 2004-2014. Realizamos simulações contrafactuais e verificamos que a taxa de desemprego dos filhos, decrescente entre 2004 e 2014, não teria se alterado no período, caso as condições e oportunidades de mercado de trabalho dos filhos tivessem continuado as mesmas de 2004. Já a taxa de desemprego das mães não sofre grandes alterações no período. A tendência crescente na inatividade dos filhos é determinada por uma taxa de encorajamento decrescente e uma taxa de desistência crescente, que refletem fatores exógenos que levam jovens trabalhadores à inatividade. Esses fatores exógenos podem estar relacionados ao menor custo da educação no período. Concluímos que o uso de modelos individuais de busca por emprego para entender o desemprego e a inatividade agregados deve ser desencorajado, pois o comportamento de busca familiar importa para as decisões de oferta de trabalho dos membros secundários da família.

Este trabalho analisa o comportamento dos salários agrícolas e estima modelos de determinação de salário de equilíbrio para os trabalhadores temporários e permanentes no Brasil e nas regiões com o setor agropecuário menos e mais tecnificado. Para efeito de análise, tomou-se em consideração o período de 1971 a 1996. O mercado de trabalho agrícola foi segmentado em duas categorias de trabalhadores: temporários e permanentes. Para tanto, considerou-se que nesse mercado de trabalho há duas estruturas salariais distintas (para trabalhadores temporários e permanentes) e que os processos históricos de formação dessas duas categorias de trabalhadores têm características particulares. Para analisar a determinação dos salários agrícolas em termos de regiões, as unidades da Federação foram agrupadas segundo o grau de tecnificação: região menos tecnificada (Acre e os estados da região Nordeste, exceto Piauí) e a região mais tecnificada (estados das regiões Centro-Oeste, Sudeste e Sul). Nos modelos econométricos desenvolvidos foram considerados aspectos inerentes ao mercado de trabalho agrícola e aspecto institucional, no caso o salário mínimo. As equações foram estimadas com os dados em pooling. As análises estatísticas indicaram que os termos de erro das equações estimadas têm estruturas de "componentes" (two way). Para tanto, aplicou-se o procedimento econométrico de Fuller & Battese. Os resultados indicaram que a equação estimada de determinação dos salários dos trabalhadores temporários no Brasil não apresentou bons resultados, sendo que os coeficientes do salário mínimo (WM) e a da relação de preços recebidos e pagos pelos produtores rurais (Pa) não foram estatisticamente significativos. No entanto, nas equações estimadas nas regiões menos e mais tecnificadas, o WM foi altamente significativo estatisticamente. Já o coeficiente estimado da variável Pa não foi significativo estatisticamente para as demais equações. O coeficiente do salário alternativo (WU) foi de sinal positivo e significativo estatisticamente em todas as equações estimadas para o segmento do mercado de trabalho temporário. O coeficiente da produtividade do trabalho (Pmo) também foi significativo estatisticamente e com sinal positivo, exceto para a equação da região mais tecnificada, na qual o sinal foi negativo, isto é, contrário ao esperado. Neste caso verificou-se um processo de transferência de renda do trabalho para o fator de produção capital. As estimativas das equações dos salários dos trabalhadores permanentes no Brasil e nas regiões menos e mais tecnificadas apresentaram comportamentos semelhantes. Das três variáveis explicativas (WM, Pa, Pmo) consideradas nos modelos, apenas o coeficiente de Pa não foi significativo estatisticamente. De modo geral, o coeficiente com maior valor e o mais significativo foi o salário mínimo. Ele tem funcionado como um indexador dos salários agrícolas, tal como evidencia a literatura sobre a mão-de-obra não-qualificada do setor urbano. No entanto, a institucionalização do salário mínimo no mercado de trabalho agrícola não foi suficiente para garantir que os salários dos trabalhadores temporários e permanentes na região menos tecnificada fossem igual ou superior ao mínimo. Apesar do grande crescimento da produtividade do trabalho (Pmo), esta afetou mais significativamente os salários da mão-de-obra permanente. Por outro lado, no caso dos trabalhadores temporários na região mais tecnificada, observe-se uma transferência de renda do fator trabalho ao capital (is to é, o coeficiente de Pmo foi negativo). Dos resultados econométricos obtidos no presente trabalho, pode-se afirmar que a determinação dos salários agrícolas, de modo geral, tem um forte componente institucional (salário mínimo) e os fatores de mercado têm papel menos relevante. / This paper analyzes the performance of rural wages and it also estimates wage equations for temporary and permanent workers. The analyzed time period is 1971 through 1996, and three aggregations of wages were considered: for the entire Brazil, for the region with more sophisticated agriculture and for the region with less sophisticated agriculture. Agricultural labor force was divided into two categories: temporary and permanent workers. It was considered that agricultural labor market has two different wage structures, for temporary and permanent workers, and the historic process of labor market formation created particular features for these workers. The analysis was conducted considering wages paid for entire Brazil and for two regions. The states were aggregated according to their agriculture’s technical level. The state of Acre and Northeast Brazil's states, except the state of Piaui, form the less sophisticated agricultural region. The states of Center-Western, Southeast and Southern Brazil form the more sophisticated agricultural region. In order to determine the econometric equations, both market-oriented variables and institutional variables were considered as independent variables. Minimum wage is the institutional variable considered. By using pooling techniques, rural wage equations were estimated. The error has a componentstructure. Due to that, the Fuller & Battese technique was used. The results for temporary workers' wage equation was not good when wages were aggregated for the entire Brazil. The coefficients for minimum wage (WM) and the ratio between received and paid prices (Pa) were not statistically significant. Better econometric results appeared for temporary workers’ wage equations when wages were aggregated in two regions. The coefficients of minimum wage (WM) were statistically significant. The coefficient of Pa, however, was not statistically significant. The coefficient of alternative wage (WU) was positive and statistically significant. The same results appeared for the labor productivity coefficient (Pmo), except for the temporary workers’ wage equation for the more sophisticated region. In the latter region, income transfer happened from the temporary workers to the capital owners. Similar results were found for permanent workers’ wage equations estimated for the entire Brazil and its two regions. All independents variables but Pa were statistically significant. Generally, the biggest and the most statistically significant coefficient appeared for the minimum wage variable. It has worked as an indexation for the rural wages, in the same way that the economic literature proved it for the unskilled, urban workers. However, the minimum wage law is not enough to prevent the rural workers in receiving a wage below the minimum wage. Despite the huge labor productivity increase, Pmo affected mo re the permanent workers' wages. In the more sophisticated region, there is an income transfer from temporary workers to the capital owners, because the estimated coefficient of Pmo is negative. From the above results, it is possible to state that rural wage is strongly determined by institutional forces, such as minimum wage, and market forces have a smaller influence on rural wages.