IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/5631.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is the Time-Series Evidence on Minimum Wage Effects Contaminated by Publication Bias?

Author

Listed:
  • David Neumark
  • William Wascher

Abstract

Publication bias in economics may lead to selective specification searches that result in overreporting in the published literature of results consistent with economists' priors. In reassessing the published time-series studies on the employment effects of minimum wages, some recent research has reported evidence consistent with publication bias, and concluded that the most plausible explanation of this evidence is editors' and authors' tendencies to look for negative and statistically significant estimates of the employment effect of the minimum wage, (Card and Krueger, 1995a, p. 242). We present results indicating that the evidence is more consistent with a change in the estimated minimum wage effect over time than with publication bias. More generally, we demonstrate that existing approaches to testing for publication bias may generate spurious evidence of such bias when there are structural changes in some parameters. We then suggest an alternative strategy for testing for publication bias that is more immune to structural change. Although changing parameters may be uncommon in clinical trials on which most of the existing literature on publication bias is based, they are much more plausible in economics.

Suggested Citation

  • David Neumark & William Wascher, 1996. "Is the Time-Series Evidence on Minimum Wage Effects Contaminated by Publication Bias?," NBER Working Papers 5631, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5631
    Note: LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w5631.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gary Solon, 1985. "The Minimum Wage and Teenage Employment: A Reanalysis with Attention to Serial Correlation and Seasonality," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 20(2), pages 292-297.
    2. Hamermesh, Daniel S, 1982. "Minimum Wages and the Demand for Labor," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 20(3), pages 365-380, July.
    3. Brown, Charles & Gilroy, Curtis & Kohen, Andrew, 1982. "The Effect of the Minimum Wage on Employment and Unemployment," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 20(2), pages 487-528, June.
    4. Brunner, Karl & Meltzer, Allan H., 1976. "The Phillips curve," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 1-18, January.
    5. Siskind, Frederic B, 1977. "Minimum Wage Legislation in the United States: Comment," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 15(1), pages 135-138, January.
    6. De Long, J Bradford & Lang, Kevin, 1992. "Are All Economic Hypotheses False?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(6), pages 1257-1272, December.
    7. Charles Brown & Curtis Gilroy & Andrew Kohen, 1983. "Time-Series Evidence of the Effect of the Minimum Wage on Youth Employment and Unemployment," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 18(1), pages 3-31.
    8. Eugene Canjels & Mark W. Watson, 1997. "Estimating Deterministic Trends In The Presence Of Serially Correlated Errors," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(2), pages 184-200, May.
    9. Card, David & Krueger, Alan B, 1995. "Time-Series Minimum-Wage Studies: A Meta-analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(2), pages 238-243, May.
    10. Welch, Finis, 1974. "Minimum Wage Legislation in the United States," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 12(3), pages 285-318, September.
    11. David Neumark & William Wascher, 1994. "Minimum Wage Effects and Low-Wage Labor Markets: A Disequilibrium Approach," NBER Working Papers 4617, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Lucas, Robert Jr, 1976. "Econometric policy evaluation: A critique," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 19-46, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Garret Christensen & Edward Miguel, 2018. "Transparency, Reproducibility, and the Credibility of Economics Research," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(3), pages 920-980, September.
    2. Francisco Carneiro, 2004. "Are Minimum Wages to Blame for Informality in the Labour Market?," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 31(4), pages 295-306, December.
    3. Bernhard Boockmann, 2010. "The Combined Employment Effects of Minimum Wages and Labor Market Regulation—a Meta-Analysis," Applied Economics Quarterly (formerly: Konjunkturpolitik), Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 61(Supplemen), pages 167-188.
    4. Simonetta Longhi & Peter Nijkamp & Jacques Poot, 2005. "A Meta‐Analytic Assessment of the Effect of Immigration on Wages," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(3), pages 451-477, July.
    5. Jarle Møen & Helge Sandvig Thorsen, 2017. "Publication Bias in the Returns to R&D Literature," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 8(3), pages 987-1013, September.
    6. Neumark, David & Munguía Corella, Luis Felipe, 2021. "Do minimum wages reduce employment in developing countries? A survey and exploration of conflicting evidence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    7. Peter Nijkamp & Jacques Poot, 2005. "The Last Word on the Wage Curve?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(3), pages 421-450, July.
    8. Hristos Doucouliagos & T. D. Stanley, 2009. "Publication Selection Bias in Minimum‐Wage Research? A Meta‐Regression Analysis," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 47(2), pages 406-428, June.
    9. Jellal, Mohamed, 2012. "Maroc salaire minimum emploi et pauvreté [Morocco minimum wage employment and poverty]," MPRA Paper 38491, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. David Neumark & William Wascher, 2006. "Minimum Wages and Employment: A Review of Evidence from the New Minimum Wage Research," NBER Working Papers 12663, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Larry D. Singell & James R. Terborg, 2007. "Employment Effects Of Two Northwest Minimum Wage Initiatives," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 45(1), pages 40-55, January.
    12. Raymond J.G.M. Florax & Henri L.F. de Groot & Ruud A. de Mooij, 2002. "Meta-analysis: A Tool for Upgrading Inputs of Macroeconomic Policy Models," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 02-041/3, Tinbergen Institute.

    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. Hristos Doucouliagos & T. D. Stanley, 2009. "Publication Selection Bias in Minimum‐Wage Research? A Meta‐Regression Analysis," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 47(2), pages 406-428, June.
    2. Dessing, Maryke, 2004. "Implications for minimum-wage policies of an S-shaped labor-supply curve," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 53(4), pages 543-568, April.
    3. Tomas Kucera, 2020. "Are Employment Effects of Minimum Wage the Same Across the EU? A Meta-Regression Analysis," Working Papers IES 2020/2, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, revised Jan 2020.
    4. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2101-2163 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. O'Higgins, Niall, 2001. "Youth unemployment and employment policy: a global perspective," MPRA Paper 23698, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Stephen Bazen & Velayoudom Marimoutou, 2002. "Looking for a Needle in a Haystack? A Re‐examination of the Time Series Relationship between Teenage Employment and Minimum Wages in the United States," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 64(supplemen), pages 699-725, December.
    7. David Neumark & William Wascher, 2006. "Minimum Wages and Employment: A Review of Evidence from the New Minimum Wage Research," NBER Working Papers 12663, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Christian Ragacs, 2002. "Warum Mindestlöhne die Beschäftigung nicht reduzieren müssen," Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft - WuG, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik, vol. 28(1), pages 59-84.
    9. Yariv, Leeat & Jackson, Matthew O., 2018. "The Non-Existence of Representative Agents," CEPR Discussion Papers 13397, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Hendry, David F. & Clements, Michael P., 2003. "Economic forecasting: some lessons from recent research," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 301-329, March.
    11. Poterba, James M. & Summers, Lawrence H., 1983. "Dividend taxes, corporate investment, and `Q'," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 135-167, November.
    12. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2007_032 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. He, Yong, 2018. "Can the visible and invisible hands coexist in land pricing?," MPRA Paper 88770, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Havranek, Tomas & Irsova, Zuzana, 2011. "Estimating vertical spillovers from FDI: Why results vary and what the true effect is," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 234-244.
    15. Lozej, Matija & Rannenberg, Ansgar, 2017. "The macroeconomic effects of the regulatory LTV and LTI ratios in the Central Bank of Ireland's DSGE model," Economic Letters 04/EL/17, Central Bank of Ireland.
    16. I. Bukina S. & P. Orekhovsky A. & И. Букина С. & П. Ореховский А., 2018. "Особенности российской модели экономического роста // Specific features of the Russian Economic Growth Model," Финансы: теория и практика/Finance: Theory and Practice // Finance: Theory and Practice, ФГОБУВО Финансовый университет при Правительстве Российской Федерации // Financial University under The Government of Russian Federation, vol. 22(6), pages 6-24.
    17. Thomas J. Sargent, 1982. "The Ends of Four Big Inflations," NBER Chapters, in: Inflation: Causes and Effects, pages 41-98, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Bruno Frey, 2011. "Tullock challenges: happiness, revolutions, and democracy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 148(3), pages 269-281, September.
    19. Cathy Yi-Hsuan Chen & Thomas C. Chiang, 2017. "Surprises, sentiments, and the expectations hypothesis of the term structure of interest rates," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 49(1), pages 1-28, July.
    20. Peter J. Buckley & Jeremy Clegg & Nicolas Forsans & Kevin T. Reilly, 2010. "A Simple and Flexible Dynamic Approach to Foreign Direct Investment Growth: The Canada-United States Relationship in the Context of Free Trade," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Foreign Direct Investment, China and the World Economy, chapter 17, pages 386-418, Palgrave Macmillan.
    21. Malick Souare, 2003. "Macroeconomic Implications of Population Aging and Public Pensions," Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population Research Papers 100, McMaster University.
    22. Starck, Christian, 1991. "Specifying a Bayesian vector autoregression for short-run macroeconomic forecasting with an application to Finland," Research Discussion Papers 4/1991, Bank of Finland.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C10 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - General
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand

    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:nbr:nberwo:5631. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.