IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/hfiwps/0026.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do reduced labor costs increase employment among minimum wage workers? Evidence from a Swedish payroll tax cut

Author

Listed:

Abstract

We use a youth payroll tax cut in Sweden to investigate whether retail firms that were exposed to substantial labor cost savings increased employment of minimum wage workers more than firms that received smaller labor cost savings. Our dataset includes information on both contracted wages and working hours for most employees in the Swedish retail trade industry. The fact that a large portion of retail employees had contracted wages near the negotiated minimum wage levels at the time of the reform suggests that the minimum wage levels were binding to a great extent. We also find that retail firms with large labor cost savings due to the youth payroll tax cut significantly increased both the number of minimum wage hourly employees and their working hours. We observe no such effects for employees with long-term contracts or wages well above the negotiated minimum wages. This suggests that the relatively high minimum wage levels of the Swedish retail industry prevent the employment of workers who are perceived to have low productivity.

Suggested Citation

  • Daunfeldt, Sven-Olov & Gidehag, Anton & Seerar Westerberg, Hans, 2023. "Do reduced labor costs increase employment among minimum wage workers? Evidence from a Swedish payroll tax cut," HFI Working Papers 26, Institute of Retail Economics (Handelns Forskningsinstitut).
  • Handle: RePEc:hhs:hfiwps:0026
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hfi.se/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Paper-2_Hans-Seerar-Westerberg.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sven-Olov Daunfeldt & Dan Johansson & Hans Seerar Westerberg, 2019. "Which firms provide jobs for unemployed non-Western immigrants?," The Service Industries Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(9-10), pages 762-778, July.
    2. Saez, Emmanuel & Schoefer, Benjamin & Seim, David, 2021. "Hysteresis from employer subsidies," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    3. Emmanuel Saez & Benjamin Schoefer & David Seim, 2019. "Payroll Taxes, Firm Behavior, and Rent Sharing: Evidence from a Young Workers' Tax Cut in Sweden," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(5), pages 1717-1763, May.
    4. Card, David & Krueger, Alan B, 1994. "Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 772-793, September.
    5. Sylvia A. Allegretto & Arindrajit Dube & Michael Reich, 2011. "Do Minimum Wages Really Reduce Teen Employment? Accounting for Heterogeneity and Selectivity in State Panel Data," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(2), pages 205-240, April.
    6. Raj Chetty & Adam Looney & Kory Kroft, 2009. "Salience and Taxation: Theory and Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1145-1177, September.
    7. Christl Michael & Köppl-Turyna Monika & Kucsera Dénes, 2018. "Revisiting the Employment Effects of Minimum Wages in Europe," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 19(4), pages 426-465, December.
    8. Georgiadis, Andreas & Kaplanis, Ioannis & Monastiriotis, Vassilis, 2020. "Minimum wages and firm employment: Evidence from a minimum wage reduction in Greece," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    9. Atif Mian & Amir Sufi, 2012. "The Effects of Fiscal Stimulus: Evidence from the 2009 Cash for Clunkers Program," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(3), pages 1107-1142.
    10. Seerar Westerberg, Hans, 2021. "Are payroll tax cuts absorbed by insiders? Evidence from the Swedish retail industry," HFI Working Papers 20, Institute of Retail Economics (Handelns Forskningsinstitut).
    11. Skedinger, Per, 2014. "Effects of Payroll Tax Cuts for Young Workers," Working Paper Series 1031, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    12. Gruber, Jonathan, 1994. "The Incidence of Mandated Maternity Benefits," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 622-641, June.
    13. John Schmitt, 2015. "Explaining the Small Employment Effects of the Minimum Wage in the United States," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(4), pages 547-581, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sven-Olov Daunfeldt & Anton Gidehag & Niklas Rudholm, 2021. "How Do Firms Respond to Reduced Labor Costs? Evidence from the 2007 Swedish Payroll Tax Reform," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 315-338, September.
    2. Gidehag, Anton, 2019. "Firms’ labor cost savings and recruitment of nonwestern immigrants: The unintended effect of a payroll tax reform," HFI Working Papers 5, Institute of Retail Economics (Handelns Forskningsinstitut).
    3. Kim, Jinyoung & Kim, Seonghoon & Koh, Kanghyock, 2022. "Labor market institutions and the incidence of payroll taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    4. Neumark David, 2019. "The Econometrics and Economics of the Employment Effects of Minimum Wages: Getting from Known Unknowns to Known Knowns," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 20(3), pages 293-329, August.
    5. Antoine Bozio, 2024. "The unusual French policy mix towards labour market inequalities," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 45(1), pages 43-54, March.
    6. Albanese, Andrea & Cockx, Bart & Dejemeppe, Muriel, 2024. "Long-term effects of hiring subsidies for low-educated unemployed youths," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 235(C).
    7. Hanna Frings, 2013. "The Employment Effect of Industry-Specific, Collectively Bargained Minimum Wages," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 14(3), pages 258-281, August.
    8. Bossler, Mario & Gürtzgen, Nicole & Lochner, Benjamin & Betzl, Ute & Feist, Lisa & Wegmann, Jakob, 2018. "Auswirkungen des gesetzlichen Mindestlohns auf Betriebe und Unternehmen," IAB-Forschungsbericht 201804, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    9. Albanese, Andrea & Cockx, Bart & Dejemeppe, Muriel, 2022. "Long-Term Effects of Hiring Subsidies for Unemployed Youths - Beware of Spillovers," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1168, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    10. David Neumark & Peter Shirley, 2022. "Myth or measurement: What does the new minimum wage research say about minimum wages and job loss in the United States?," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(4), pages 384-417, October.
    11. Egebark, Johan & Kaunitz, Niklas, 2018. "Payroll taxes and youth labor demand," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 163-177.
    12. Sjöholm, Fredrik, 2020. "Minimum Wages and Firm-Level Employment in a Developing Country," Working Papers 2020:4, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    13. Carrie H. Colla & William H. Dow & Arindrajit Dube, 2011. "The Labor Market Impact of Employer Health Benefit Mandates: Evidence from San Francisco's Health Care Security Ordinance," NBER Working Papers 17198, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Theano Kakoulidou & Panagiotis Konstantinou & Thomas Moutos, 2018. "The Subminimum Wage Reform in Greece and the Labour-Labour Substitution Hypothesis," CESifo Working Paper Series 7273, CESifo.
    15. Carrie H. Colla & William H. Dow & Arindrajit Dube, 2017. "The Labor-Market Impact of San Francisco's Employer-Benefit Mandate," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(1), pages 122-160, January.
    16. Seerar Westerberg, Hans, 2021. "Are payroll tax cuts absorbed by insiders? Evidence from the Swedish retail industry," HFI Working Papers 20, Institute of Retail Economics (Handelns Forskningsinstitut).
    17. Vit Hradil, 2018. "Does Minimum Wage Affect Workplace Safety?," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp615, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    18. Phan Kim Dung, 2017. "The effects of minimum wage hikes on employment and wages in Vietnam’s micro, small, and medium enterprises," WIDER Working Paper Series 095, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    19. Mayneris, Florian & Poncet, Sandra & Zhang, Tao, 2018. "Improving or disappearing: Firm-level adjustments to minimum wages in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 20-42.
    20. Alan Manning, 2021. "The Elusive Employment Effect of the Minimum Wage," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 35(1), pages 3-26, Winter.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Retail trade industry; minimum wages; payroll tax reform; natural experiments; collective bargaining;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance
    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hhs:hfiwps:0026. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Hans Seerar Westerberg (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hfi.se/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.