The published version of this paper is available here at the American Economic Review.
Abstract
Increases in the minimum wage can substantially reduce earnings inequality. To demonstrate this, we combine administrative and survey data with an equilibrium model of the Brazilian labor market. We find that a 128 percent increase in the real minimum wage in Brazil between 1996 and 2018 had far-reaching spillover effects on wages higher up in the distribution. The increased minimum wage accounts for 45 percent of a large fall in earnings inequality over this period. At the same time, the effects of the minimum wage on employment and output are muted by reallocation of workers toward more productive firms.
In response to the Covid-19 crisis, 186 countries implemented direct cash transfers to households, and 181 introduced in-kind programs that lowered the cost of utilities such as electricity, water, transport, and mobile money.
Organizational and managerial structure plays an important role in the productivity difference among firms. However, studies that assessed the quality of firm management and its link with their performance are still scanty.
Research suggests that partisanship and social media usage correlate with belief in COVID-19 misinformation, and that misinformation shapes citizens’ willingness to get vaccinated.
This article studies the structural aggregate productivity growth (APG) decomposition with demand- and supply-side controls, determines comparative statics predictions for firms and economic outcomes, and examines patterns of input distortions.
Using data from the largest online job portal in Nigeria, we document: (a) gender differences in salary offers for jobs, and (b) the response of (a) to recessions.
Many small businesses in low-income countries hire employees from their kinship networks. This fact is often attributed to hiring from the kinship network reducing contracting frictions or informational asymmetries.
Worker sorting into tasks and occupations based on their skills plays a potentially important role in aggregate labor productivity. This sorting may be inefficient if jobseekers do not apply to jobs that match their skills.