Phelps [Phelps, E. (1994): "Low-wage employment subsidies versus the welfare state", American Economic Review 84, 54-58.] presented the case for a low-wage subsidy policy. Since the mid-1990s, France has experimented with this strategy. This paper evaluates the effect of this policy on employment and also on output and welfare. We construct an equilibrium search model incorporating wage posting and specific human capital investment, where unemployment and the distribution of both wages and productivity are endogenous. We estimate this model using French data. Numerical simulations show that the prevailing minimum wage allows a high production level to be reached by increasing training investment, even though the optimal minimum wage is lower. We show that payroll tax subsidies enhance welfare more than a reduction in the minimum wage when they are spread over a large range of wages in order to avoid specialization in low productivity jobs.
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Volume (Year): 92 (2008) Issue (Month): 3-4 (April) Pages: 817-843 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
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Bent Jesper Christensen & Rasmus Lentz & Dale T. Mortensen & George R. Neumann & Axel Werwatz, 2003.
"On the Job Search and the Wage Distribution,"
CAM Working Papers
2004-09, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. Centre for Applied Microeconometrics.
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Gourieroux, C & Monfort, A & Renault, E, 1993.
"Indirect Inference,"
Journal of Applied Econometrics,
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(S), pages S85-118, Suppl. De.
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Gourieroux, C. & Monfort, A. & Renault, E., 1992.
"Indirect Inference,"
Papers
92.279, Toulouse - GREMAQ.
Elena Quercioli, 2005.
"Training, Turnover, And Search,"
International Economic Review,
Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 46(1), pages 133-143, 02.
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