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Does the Minimum Wage Have a Higher Impact on the Informal than on the Formal Labor Market? Evidence from Quasi-Experiments

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  • Khamis, Melanie

    () (Wesleyan University)

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    Abstract

    This paper investigates a puzzle in the literature on labor markets in developing countries: labor legislations not only have an impact on the formal labor market but also an impact on the informal sector. It has even been argued that the impact on the informal sector in the case of the minimum wage is stronger than on the formal sector. Using quasi-experiments of minimum wage changes and thereby exploiting geographical variation of the minimum wage bite, I find evidence for this hypothesis. Informal workers, workers without social security contribution, experienced significant wage increases when the minimum wage was raised while formal workers did not. This result highlights that non-compliance with one labor legislation, the social security contribution, does not necessarily imply non-compliance to other labor laws such as the minimum wage.

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    Bibliographic Info

    Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 3911.

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    Length: 38 pages
    Date of creation: Dec 2008
    Date of revision:
    Publication status: published in: Applied Economics, 2013, 45 (5), 477-495
    Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3911

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    Related research

    Keywords: minimum wages; quasi-experiments; informal economy;

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    Cited by:
    1. Khamis, Melanie, 2009. "A Note on Informality in the Labor Market," IZA Discussion Papers 4676, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
    2. Calavrezo, Oana & Pelek, Selin, 2011. "Qui sont les salariés payés au niveau du salaire minimum? Une analyse empirique à partir de données turques," GIAM Working Papers 11-2, Galatasaray University Economic Research Center, revised 13 Feb 2011.

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