Has the national minimum wage reduced UK wage inequality?
The paper investigates the effect on the wage distribution of the introduction, in April 1999, of the national minimum wage (NMW) in the UK. Because of the structure of UK earnings statistics, it is not straightforward to investigate this and various methods for adjusting the published statistics are discussed. The main conclusions are that the NMW does have a detectable effect on the wage distribution and that compliance with the NMW is widespread but the effect is limited because the NMW has been set at a level such that only 6-7% of workers are directly affected and the NMW has had virtually no effect on the pay of workers who are not directly affected. Furthermore, virtually all the changes occurred within 2 months of the introduction in April 1999 and its effect declined over time from April 1999 to September 2001 as the minimum wage was not uprated in line with the increase in average earnings. The more substantial increase in the NMW in October 2001 partially, but not wholly, restored some of this decline in impact. Copyright 2004 Royal Statistical Society.
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. 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.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Volume (Year): 167 (2004)
Issue (Month): 4 ()
Pages: 613-626
| Handle: | RePEc:bla:jorssa:v:167:y:2004:i:4:p:613-626 |
| Contact details of provider: | Postal: 12 Errol Street, London EC1Y 8LX, United Kingdom Phone: -44-171-638-8998 Fax: -44-171-256-7598 Web page: http://wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/rssa Email: More information through EDIRC
|
| Order Information: | Web: http://ordering.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/subs.asp?ref=1467-985X&doi=10.1111/(ISSN)1467-985X |
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.:
- DiNardo, John & Fortin, Nicole M & Lemieux, Thomas, 1996.
"Labor Market Institutions and the Distribution of Wages, 1973-1992: A Semiparametric Approach,"
Econometrica,
Econometric Society, vol. 64(5), pages 1001-1044, September.
- Nidardo, J. & Fortin, N. & Lemieux, T., 1994. "Labor Market Institutions and the Distribution of Wages, 1973-1992: A Semiparametric Approach," Papers 93-94-15, California Irvine - School of Social Sciences.
- Dinardo, J. & Fortin, N.M. & Lemieux, T., 1994. "Labor Market Institutions and the Distribution of Wages, 1973-1992: A Semiparametric Approach," Cahiers de recherche 9406, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
- John DiNardo & Nicole M. Fortin & Thomas Lemieux, 1995. "Labor Market Institutions and the Distribution of Wages, 1973-1992: A Semiparametric Approach," NBER Working Papers 5093, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Dinardo, J. & Fortin, N.M. & Lemieux, T., 1994. "Labor Market Institutions and the Distribution of Wages, 1973-1992: a Semiparametric Approach," Cahiers de recherche 9406, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
- Sue Fernie & Helen Gray, 2002. "It's a family affair: the effect of union recognition and human resource management on the provision of equal opportunities in the UK," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20089, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
- Sue Fernie & Helen Gray, 2002. "Its a Family Affair: the Effect of Union Recognition and Human Resource Management on the Provision of Equal Opportunities in the UK," CEP Discussion Papers dp0525, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jorssa:v:167:y:2004:i:4:p:613-626. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing)
or (Christopher F. Baum)If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.