What is a minimum wage for? Empirical results and theories of justice

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Abstract I undertake a political economy exercise of a type described in John Rawls' A Theory of Justice; namely, one in which economic institutions are judged by how well they match the key principles in theories of distributive justice. My main contention is that such an exercise is integrally related not only to economics in general but to empirical economics in particular. I argue that most standard theories of justice place a large weight on self and social respect and that such respect has alot to do with the position a person holds in the productive process -their wage and employment outcomes. That, in turn, means that assessments of justice in the real world hinge critically on how labour markets actually function in assigning wages and employment. The answers to these questions are ultimately empirical. I explore these ideas by examining one particular institution (the minimum wage) in relation to a set of the most prominent recent theories of distributive justice. This exercise leads to a different emphasis on what minimum wage related outcomes need study, and to a claim that minimum wage setting is related to standards of fairness defined relative to the location of the low skilled wage distribution. Terms of use: Documents in

Employment Effects of the Minimum Wage: Panel Data Evidence From Canadian Provinces

“…For an excellent discussion of the role of minimum wage as a policy tool for social justice, refer to Green ().…”

Lobbying for Minimum Wages

“…Finally, Green and Harrison (, ), and more recently Green (), contend that the political economy of minimum wages in Canada can best be explained in terms of voters' ideas of fairness. Specifically, Green and Harrison () propose a model in which voters are guided by the income distribution to determine the fair value of the minimum wage.…”

Public Policy in a Time of Crisis: A Framework for Evaluating Canada’s COVID-19 Income Support Programs

“…While some economists include equity in their normative frameworks (e.g.,Blank 2002;Green 2014), most models seek to maximize efficiency as the formal normative objective (subject to a set of constraints), which then implicitly becomes the primary criteria for policy evaluation. In industrial relations, it is common to consider balancing efficiency with both equity and voice as the primary objective in the design of labour market institutions, even if this process "interferes" with the price mechanism of the market -not only because of the recognition that labor must be treated fairly to achieve optimal efficiency, but also because labour, as embodied in humans, should be protected "from the abuses of a pure efficiency regime"(Budd et al 2004, 199).https://utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/cpp.2020-117 -Sunday,March 14, 2021 8:21:05 PM -IP Address:44.224.250.200 …”