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The Other Margin: Do Minimum Wages Cause Working Hours Adjustments for Low‐Wage Workers?
Author(s) -
STEWART MARK B.,
SWAFFIELD JOANNA K.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
economica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.532
H-Index - 65
eISSN - 1468-0335
pISSN - 0013-0427
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0335.2007.00593.x
Subject(s) - overtime , earnings , economics , minimum wage , hourly wage , labour economics , margin (machine learning) , low wage , wage , working hours , efficiency wage , demographic economics , accounting , machine learning , computer science
This paper estimates the impact of the introduction of the UK minimum wage on the working hours of low‐wage employees using difference‐in‐differences estimators. The estimates using the employer‐based New Earnings Surveys indicate that the introduction of the minimum wage reduced the basic hours of low‐wage workers by between one and two hours per week. The effects on total paid hours are similar (indicating negligible effects on paid overtime), and lagged effects dominate the smaller and less significant initial effects within this. Estimates using the employee‐based Labour Force Surveys are typically less significant.