This paper examines the relationship between minimum wages and poverty in developing countries. We regress changes in poverty indicators for a group of developing countries on minimum wage changes, changes in public spending, human capital investment and other variables associated with changes in poverty. We find that higher minimum wages are associated with lower levels of poverty. This result is replicated across a range of poverty measures and country groupings. Higher minimum wages are also associated with higher unemployment, so the potential reduction in poverty is not costless from an efficiency point of view.
Download Info
To our knowledge, this item is not available for
download. To find whether it is available, there are three
options:
1. Check below under "Related research" whether another version of this item is available online.
2. Check on the provider's web page
whether it is in fact available.
3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be
available.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Brookings Institution - Working Papers in its series Papers with number
125.
Find related papers by JEL classification: I30 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - General I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty J32 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Nonwage Labor Costs and Benefits; Private Pensions O10 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General
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.)
Did you know? You can create a compilation of all publications of a group of people, say alumni of a program, your students or memers of an association.