IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/beo/journl/v64y2019i223p61-82.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Minimum Wage As A Wage Equality Policy: Evidence From North Macedonia

Author

Listed:
  • Marjan Petreski
  • Nikica Mojsoska Blazevski
  • Mariko Ouchi

Abstract

The paper aims to investi-gate if the minimum wage increase of Sep-tember 2017 resulted in better wage equal-ity in North Macedonia. The increase of 19% was sizable and included levelling up in the three sectors with a lower minimum wage: textiles, apparel, and leather. We ex-tend the ‘cell’ approach of Card (1992a) and rely on data from the Labour Force Survey 2017 and 2018. The results suggest that the 2017 increase in the minimum wage had a positive, significant, and robust effect on wages. However, the wage increases were almost entirely positioned on the left side of the wage distribution and implied wage compression up to or around the minimum wage. The bunching around the new mini-mum wage level ‘equalised’ workers: those who previously earned the new minimum wage level equalised with the less produc-tive workers who approximated their wage only by the power of the law. Hence, wage equality improved. The results confirm that the minimum wage can be an important wage equality policy, with considerably limited upward spillover effects in the cur-rent policy and institutional setup.

Suggested Citation

  • Marjan Petreski & Nikica Mojsoska Blazevski & Mariko Ouchi, 2019. "The Minimum Wage As A Wage Equality Policy: Evidence From North Macedonia," Economic Annals, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Belgrade, vol. 64(223), pages 61-82, October –.
    • Handle: RePEc:beo:journl:v:64:y:2019:i:223:p:61-82
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ekof.bg.ac.rs/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/031.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Card, 1992. "Using Regional Variation in Wages to Measure the Effects of the Federal Minimum Wage," Working Papers 680, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    2. Dinkelman, Taryn & Ranchhod, Vimal, 2012. "Evidence on the impact of minimum wage laws in an informal sector: Domestic workers in South Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 27-45.
    3. James J. Heckman, 1976. "The Common Structure of Statistical Models of Truncation, Sample Selection and Limited Dependent Variables and a Simple Estimator for Such Models," NBER Chapters, in: Annals of Economic and Social Measurement, Volume 5, number 4, pages 475-492, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. DiNardo, John & Fortin, Nicole M & Lemieux, Thomas, 1996. "Labor Market Institutions and the Distribution of Wages, 1973-1992: A Semiparametric Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(5), pages 1001-1044, September.
    5. David Card, 1992. "Do Minimum Wages Reduce Employment? A Case Study of California, 1987–89," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 46(1), pages 38-54, October.
    6. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    7. David H. Autor & Alan Manning & Christopher L. Smith, 2016. "The Contribution of the Minimum Wage to US Wage Inequality over Three Decades: A Reassessment," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 58-99, January.
    8. David Card, 1992. "Using Regional Variation in Wages to Measure the Effects of the Federal Minimum Wage," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 46(1), pages 22-37, October.
    9. repec:fth:prinin:300 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Niklas Engbom & Christian Moser, 2022. "Earnings Inequality and the Minimum Wage: Evidence from Brazil," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(12), pages 3803-3847, December.
    11. Marcelo Nicolas Claure Ramirez & Alejandra Leyton & Christian Valencia & Karenth Vanessa Sanchez Bohrquez & Jorge Davalos, 2017. "Evidence of the Impacts of Minimum Wage on Labor Market Outcomes: The Case of Bolivia," Working Papers PMMA 2017-10, PEP-PMMA.
    12. Lemos, Sara, 2009. "Minimum wage effects in a developing country," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 224-237, April.
    13. David S. Lee, 1999. "Wage Inequality in the United States During the 1980s: Rising Dispersion or Falling Minimum Wage?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 977-1023.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Marjan Petreski, 2022. "Minimum wage and manufacturing labor share: Evidence from North Macedonia," Finance Think Policy Studies 2022-02/41, Finance Think - Economic Research and Policy Institute.
    2. Marjan Petreski, 2020. "Beyond income inequality in North Macedonia: An overview," Finance Think Policy Studies 2020-04/27, Finance Think - Economic Research and Policy Institute.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pérez Pérez, Jorge, 2020. "The minimum wage in formal and informal sectors: Evidence from an inflation shock," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    2. Sotomayor, Orlando J., 2021. "Can the minimum wage reduce poverty and inequality in the developing world? Evidence from Brazil," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    3. Zsófia L. Bárány, 2016. "The Minimum Wage and Inequality: The Effects of Education and Technology," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(1), pages 237-274.
    4. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/4jgjdlef848r49dq2dv8go26r7 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Pablo Blanchard & Paula Carrasco & Rodrigo Ceni & Cecilia Parada & Sofía Santín, 2021. "Distributive and displacement effects of a coordinated wage bargaining scheme," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 21-26, Instituto de Economía - IECON.
    6. Cengiz, Doruk & Dube, Arindrajit & Lindner, Attila & Zipperer, Ben, 2018. "The effect of minimum wages on low-wage jobs: evidence from the United States using a bunching estimator," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 88682, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Marco Caliendo & Alexandra Fedorets & Malte Preuss & Carsten Schröder & Linda Wittbrodt, 2023. "The short- and medium-term distributional effects of the German minimum wage reform," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 64(3), pages 1149-1175, March.
    8. Jaerim Choi & Ivan Rivadeneyra & Kenia Ramirez, 2021. "Labor Market Effects of a Minimum Wage: Evidence from Ecuadorian Monthly Administrative Data," CESifo Working Paper Series 8987, CESifo.
    9. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/eu4vqp9ompqllr09i8hjg0kpi is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Doruk Cengiz & Arindrajit Dube & Attila Lindner & Ben Zipperer, 2019. "The Effect of Minimum Wages on Low-Wage Jobs," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(3), pages 1405-1454.
    11. Peter Hull & Michal Kolesár & Christopher Walters, 2022. "Labor by design: contributions of David Card, Joshua Angrist, and Guido Imbens," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 124(3), pages 603-645, July.
    12. Oliveira, Carlos, 2021. "How is the Minimum Wage Shaping the Wage Distribution: Minimum Wage, Spillovers, and Wage Inequality in Portugal," MPRA Paper 112534, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Hyunbae Chun & Jungmin Lee & Donghan Shin, 2024. "Does the Minimum Wage Affect Non-wage Workers?," Korean Economic Review, Korean Economic Association, vol. 40, pages 5-47.
    14. Bossler, Mario & Schank, Thorsten, 2020. "Wage Inequality in Germany after the Minimum Wage Introduction," IZA Discussion Papers 13003, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Marco Caliendo & Carsten Schröder & Linda Wittbrodt, 2019. "The Causal Effects of the Minimum Wage Introduction in Germany – An Overview," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 20(3), pages 257-292, August.
    16. Luis E. Arango & Luz A. Flórez & Laura D. Guerrero, 2020. "Minimum wage effects on informality across demographic groups in Colombia," Borradores de Economia 1104, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    17. Arabzadeh, Hamzeh & Balleer, Almut & Gehrke, Britta & Taskin, Ahmet Ali, 2024. "Minimum wages, wage dispersion and financial constraints in firms," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    18. Juan A. Correa & Francisco Parro, 2020. "On the heterogeneous short‐term effects of minimum wages on labor demand," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 16(2), pages 184-195, June.
    19. Arabzadeh, Hamzeh & Balleer, Almut & Gehrke, Britta & Taskin, Ahmet Ali, 2024. "Minimum wages, wage dispersion and financial constraints in firms," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    20. Marlies Piek & Dieter von Fintel, 2020. "Sectoral minimum wages in South Africa: Disemployment by firm size and trade exposure," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(3), pages 462-482, May.
    21. George L. Wehby & Dhaval M. Dave & Robert Kaestner, 2020. "Effects of the Minimum Wage on Infant Health," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(2), pages 411-443, March.
    22. Biewen, Martin & Fitzenberger, Bernd & Rümmele, Marian, 2022. "Using Distribution Regression Difference-in-Differences to Evaluate the Effects of a Minimum Wage Introduction on the Distribution of Hourly Wages and Hours Worked," IZA Discussion Papers 15534, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    minimum wage; spillover effects; North Macedonia;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:beo:journl:v:64:y:2019:i:223:p:61-82. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Goran Petrić (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/efbeoyu.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.