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Minimum wages and the rise in solo self-employment

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  • Ganserer, Angelika
  • Gregory, Terry
  • Zierahn, Ulrich

Abstract

Solo self-employment is on the rise despite less favorable working conditions compared to traditional jobs. We show that the introduction of minimum wages in German industries led to an increase in the share of solo self-employment by up to 8.5 percentage points. We explain our findings within a substitution-scale model that predicts a decline in demand and earnings perspectives for high-skilled dependent workers, whenever the negative scale effect (overall decline in industry employment) dominates the positive substitution effect (shift towards high-skilled workers). Such situations can occur during an economic downturn in combination with a strong and rising minimum wage bite.

Suggested Citation

  • Ganserer, Angelika & Gregory, Terry & Zierahn, Ulrich, 2022. "Minimum wages and the rise in solo self-employment," ZEW Discussion Papers 22-024, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:zewdip:22024
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    minimum wages; solo self-employment; synthetic control method;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J38 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Public Policy
    • J08 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics Policies

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