We introduce the heterogeneity of labor in a simple imperfectly com- petitive aggregate labor market model "à la Manning (1990)" in order to analyze the effects of an exogenous rise of the legal minimum wage on the unemployment equilibrium, the wage dispersion and the general price level. We assume also the presence of "knowledge spillovers" in the in- dividual production function leading to increasing returns to scale at the aggregate level and involving the possibility of multiple equilibria. Then, thanks to a comparative statics exercise, we show that a rise in the legal minimum wage has no impact on the unemployment equilibria, increases the general price level proportionally to the share of low-skilled employ- ment in the total employment and reduces the wage dispersion. These results are broadly consistent with the Card Krueger's empirical findings (1995).
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
Paper provided by LAMETA, Universtiy of Montpellier in its series Working Papers with number
08-16.
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.:
Layard, Richard & Nickell, Stephen, 1986.
"Unemployment in Britain,"
Economica,
London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 53(210(S)), pages S121-69, Supplemen.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)