TY  - JOUR
A1  - Caliendo, Marco
A1  - Fedorets, Alexandra
A1  - Preuss, Malte
A1  - Schröder, Carsten
A1  - Wittbrodt, Linda
T1  - The short-run employment effects of the German minimum wage reform
JF  - Labour economics : an international journal
N2  - We assess the short-term employment effects of the introduction of a national statutory minimum wage in Germany in 2015. For this purpose, we exploit variation in the regional treatment intensity, assuming that the stronger a minimum wage ‘bites’ into the regional wage distribution, the stronger the regional labour market will be affected. In contrast to previous studies, we construct two regional bite indicators based upon detailed individual wage data from the Structure of Earnings Survey (SES) 2014 and combine it with administrative information on regional employment. Moreover, using the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), we are able to affirm the absence of anticipation effects and verify the assumption of a common trend in wages before the reform. In sum, we find only moderate negative effects on overall employment of about 140,000 (0.4%) jobs, which are mainly driven by a sharp decline of marginal employment (‘mini-jobs’), while we do not find pronounced significant effects for regular employment in most specifications. Our results are robust to a variety of sensitivity tests.
KW  - Minimum wage
KW  - Regional bite
KW  - Employment effects
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2018.07.002
SN  - 0927-5371
SN  - 1879-1034
VL  - 53
SP  - 46
EP  - 62
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - Amsterdam
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Caliendo, Marco
A1  - Fedorets, Alexandra
A1  - Preuss, Malte
A1  - Schröder, Carsten
A1  - Wittbrodt, Linda
T1  - The short- and medium-term distributional effects of the German minimum wage reform
JF  - Empirical economics
N2  - This study quantifies the distributional effects of the minimum wage introduced in Germany in 2015. Using detailed Socio-Economic Panel survey data, we assess changes in the hourly wages, working hours, and monthly wages of employees who were entitled to be paid the minimum wage. We employ a difference-in-differences analysis, exploiting regional variation in the “bite” of the minimum wage. At the bottom of the hourly wage distribution, we document wage growth of 9% in the short term and 21% in the medium term. At the same time, we find a reduction in working hours, such that the increase in hourly wages does not lead to a subortionate increase in monthly wages. We conclude that working hours adjustments play an important role in the distributional effects of minimum wages.
KW  - minimum wage
KW  - wage distribution
KW  - hourly wages
KW  - inequality
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00181-022-02288-4
SN  - 0377-7332
SN  - 1435-8921
VL  - 64
SP  - 1149
EP  - 1175
PB  - Springer
CY  - Berlin
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Caliendo, Marco
A1  - Wittbrodt, Linda
T1  - Did the minimum wage reduce the gender wage gap in Germany?
JF  - Labour economics
N2  - In many countries, women are over-represented among low-wage employees, which is why a wage floor could benefit them particularly. Following this notion, we analyse the impact of the German minimum wage introduction in 2015 on the gender wage gap. Germany poses an interesting case study in this context, since it has a rather high gender wage gap and set the minimum wage at a relatively high level, affecting more than four million employees. Based on individual data from the Structure of Earnings Survey, containing information for over one million employees working in 60,000 firms, we use a difference-in-difference framework that exploits regional differences in the bite of the minimum wage. We find a significant negative effect of the minimum wage on the regional gender wage gap. Between 2014 and 2018, the gap at the 10th percentile of the wage distribution was reduced by 4.6 percentage points (or 32%) in regions that were strongly affected by the minimum wage compared to less affected regions. For the gap at the 25th percentile, the effect still amounted to 18%, while for the mean it was smaller (11%) and not particularly robust. We thus find that the minimum wage can indeed reduce gender wage disparities. While the effect is highest for the low-paid, it also reaches up into higher parts of the wage distribution.
KW  - minimum wage
KW  - gender wage gap
KW  - regional bite
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2022.102228
SN  - 09275371
VL  - 78
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - Amsterdam
ER  -