IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unu/wpaper/wp-2025-10.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Minimum wages, de facto private standards, and trade diversion in horticulture

Author

Listed:
  • Marlies Piek
  • Dieter von Fintel

Abstract

The effects of minimum wages on workers and firms depend on enforcement and compliance. While most research examines local determinants, this paper explores whether international market enforcement influences minimum wage impacts. In South Africa farmers exporting to the EU must comply with private standards mandating minimum wage adherence. Using difference-in-differences and administrative tax data, we analyse how a large agricultural minimum wage increase affected export stance, employment, and wages under varying private standards.

Suggested Citation

  • Marlies Piek & Dieter von Fintel, 2025. "Minimum wages, de facto private standards, and trade diversion in horticulture," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2025-10, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    • Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2025-10
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/Publications/Working-paper/PDF/wp2025-10-minimum-wages-de-facto-private-standards-trade-diversion-horticulture.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Charles Brown & Curtis Gilroy & Andrew Kohen, 1982. "The Effect of the Minimum Wage on Employment and Unemployment: A Survey," NBER Working Papers 0846, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. David I. Levine & Michael W. Toffel, 2010. "Quality Management and Job Quality: How the ISO 9001 Standard for Quality Management Systems Affects Employees and Employers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(6), pages 978-996, June.
    3. 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).
    4. C. Dolan & J. Humphrey, 2000. "Governance and Trade in Fresh Vegetables: The Impact of UK Supermarkets on the African Horticulture Industry," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(2), pages 147-176.
    5. 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.
    6. Spencer Henson & John Humphrey, 2010. "Understanding the Complexities of Private Standards in Global Agri-Food Chains as They Impact Developing Countries," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(9), pages 1628-1646.
    7. Schwartz, Mark S. & Carroll, Archie B., 2003. "Corporate Social Responsibility: A Three-Domain Approach," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(4), pages 503-530, October.
    8. Arindrajit Dube & T. William Lester & Michael Reich, 2010. "Minimum Wage Effects Across State Borders: Estimates Using Contiguous Counties," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(4), pages 945-964, November.
    9. Emmanuel K. Yiridoe & J. Stephen Clark & Geb E. Marett & Robert Gordon & Peter Duinker, 2003. "ISO 14001 EMS standard registration decisions among Canadian organizations," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(4), pages 439-457.
    10. Kerr, Andrew & Wittenberg, Martin, 2021. "Union wage premia and wage inequality in South Africa," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 255-271.
    11. Vermeulen, Hester & Jordaan, Daniel du Plessis Scheepers & Korsten, Luuk & Kirsten, Johann F., 2006. "Private Standards, Handling and Hygiene in Fruit Export Supply Chains: A Preliminary Evaluation of the Economic Impact of Parallel Standards," 2006 Annual Meeting, August 12-18, 2006, Queensland, Australia 25708, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    12. Spencer Henson & Georgina Holt, 2000. "Exploring Incentives for the Adoption of Food Safety Controls: HACCP Implementation in the U.K. Dairy Sector," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 22(2), pages 407-420.
    13. Brandon Joel Tan, 2021. "The minimum wage and firm networks: Evidence from South Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-100, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    14. Ehlert, Christoph R. & Mithöfer, Dagmar & Waibel, Hermann, 2014. "Worker welfare on Kenyan export vegetable farms," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 66-73.
    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. Arindrajit Dube & Attila S. Lindner, 2024. "Minimum Wages in the 21st Century," NBER Working Papers 32878, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Nicolás Francisco Abbate & Bruno Jimnez, 2022. "Do Minimum Wage Hikes Lead to Employment Destruction? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design in Argentina," Asociación Argentina de Economía Política: Working Papers 4533, Asociación Argentina de Economía Política.
    3. Malte Luebker, 2019. "Can the Structure of Inequality Explain Fiscal Redistribution? Revisiting the Social Affinity Hypothesis," LIS Working papers 762, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Roy E. Bailey & Timothy J. Hatton & Kris Inwood, 2016. "Atmospheric Pollution and Child Health in Late Nineteenth Century Britain," CEH Discussion Papers 052, Centre for Economic History, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    7. Giulia Giupponi & Stephen Machin, 2018. "Changing the structure of minimum wages: firm adjustment and wage spillovers," CEP Discussion Papers dp1533, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    8. Dale Belman & Paul Wolfson & Kritkorn Nawakitphaitoon, 2015. "Who Is Affected by the Minimum Wage?," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(4), pages 582-621, October.
    9. David Slichter, 2023. "The employment effects of the minimum wage: A selection ratio approach to measuring treatment effects," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(3), pages 334-357, April.
    10. John C. Beghin & Miet Maertens & Johan Swinnen, 2017. "Nontariff Measures and Standards in Trade and Global Value Chains," World Scientific Book Chapters,in: Nontariff Measures and International Trade, chapter 2, pages 13-38 World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    11. John C. Beghin & Miet Maertens & Johan Swinnen, 2017. "Nontariff Measures and Standards in Trade and Global Value Chains," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: John Christopher Beghin (ed.), Nontariff Measures and International Trade, chapter 2, pages 13-38, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    12. Brian Bell & Stephen Machin, 2018. "Minimum Wages and Firm Value," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(1), pages 159-195.
    13. David Neumark, 2018. "Employment effects of minimum wages," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 1-6, December.
    14. Peter Hull & Michal Kolesár & Christopher Walters, 2022. "Labor by design: contributions of David Card, Joshua Angrist, and Guido Imbens," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 124(3), pages 603-645, July.
    15. Oliveira, Carlos, 2021. "How is the Minimum Wage Shaping the Wage Distribution: Minimum Wage, Spillovers, and Wage Inequality in Portugal," MPRA Paper 112534, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Muravyev, Alexander & Oshchepkov, Aleksey, 2013. "Minimum Wages, Unemployment and Informality: Evidence from Panel Data on Russian Regions," IZA Discussion Papers 7878, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Sebastian Fossati & Joseph Marchand, 2020. "First to $15: Alberta's Minimum Wage Policy on Employment by Wages, Ages, and Places," Working Papers 2020-15, University of Alberta, Department of Economics.
    18. Young Cheol Jung & Adian McFarlane & Anupam Das, 2021. "The effect of minimum wages on consumption in Canada," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 32(1), pages 65-89, March.
    19. Herzfeld, Thomas & Drescher, Larissa S. & Grebitus, Carola, 2011. "Cross-national adoption of private food quality standards," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 36(3), pages 401-411.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:unu:wpaper:wp-2025-10. 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: Siméon Rapin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/widerfi.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.