Since the 1980s, there has been increased interest among unions and two opposition parties in the possibility of introducing a national minimum wage (NMW). The central argument for a minimum wage is a social justice one: a minimum wage is deemed necessary to prevent some employers exploiting workers with little bargaining power by paying them less than the value of the goods and services they produce. The aim of this paper is to establish what sort of people might be affected by a minimum wage, how this might have changed over time and how far a minimum wage can be used as a tool to redistribute income from the rich to the poor. No attempt is made to simulate the effect of a NMW on employment and prices, and obviously any complete analysis needs to take these effects into account. Recent research (see the discussion below) on this issue, however, indicates little evidence that a `moderate\\\' minimum will have any effect on employment and it is thus likely that the ‘first-round effects\\\' described in this paper are informative.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Article provided by Institute for Fiscal Studies in its journal Fiscal Studies.
Volume (Year): 17 (1996) Issue (Month): 4 (November) Pages: 31-48 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
(with abstract),
plain text
(with abstract),
BibTeX,
RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite),
ReDIF
Handle: RePEc:ifs:fistud:v:17:y:1996:i:4:p:31-48
Contact details of provider: Postal: The Institute for Fiscal Studies 7 Ridgmount Street LONDON WC1E 7AE Phone: (+44) 020 7291 4800 Fax: (+44) 020 7323 4780 Email: Web page: http://www.ifs.org.uk
Order Information: Postal: The Institute for Fiscal Studies 7 Ridgmount Street LONDON WC1E 7AE Email:
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Emma Hyman).
Related research
Keywords:
Other versions of this item:
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)