Description du projet
Les inégalités dans les salaires minimums
Les décideurs politiques luttent depuis longtemps pour élaborer des mesures susceptibles d’améliorer la répartition des ressources économiques et de favoriser simultanément la croissance économique. Le projet MW_INEQ, financé par l’UE, veut étudier l’efficacité d’un instrument particulièrement important pour atteindre cet objectif: le salaire minimum. Grâce à cette étude, le projet permettra de mieux comprendre les racines des inégalités et de décomposer la structure des marchés du travail des emplois à bas salaires. L’équipe de projet y parviendra en exploitant une combinaison de données de haute qualité, de changements de politique uniques et de modèles plus riches prenant explicitement en compte le rôle des entreprises, leur capacité à fixer les salaires et le réseaux au sein desquels elles évoluent.
Objectif
Over the last two decades, wage and income inequality have increased sharply in most developed countries which is causing ever greater concern in the economic and political debate. A central challenge for policymakers is to develop measures that can simultaneously improve the distribution of economic resources and also foster economic growth. In our proposed research, we will study the effectiveness of a particular prominent instrument to achieve this goal - the minimum wage. First, we will provide a comprehensive assessment of how minimum wages affect the allocation of resources. We will examine whether minimum wages improve the efficiency of worker-firm sorting by reallocating workers to more efficient firms, how an increase in mandated wage floors ripples through the wage distribution and affects job flows among firms, and how the policy affects the assortativity of firm-to-firm relationships. Second, we will look at the impact of the minimum wage on different groups in the population by studying its effect on the allocation of jobs among immigrant and native workers. Recent research suggests that there is a link between inequality and intergenerational mobility but whether public policies that alleviate inequality can also contribute to higher intergenerational mobility remains an open question. To fill this gap in the literature, we will study the effect of minimum wages on maternal labour supply, on child development and eventually on intergenerational mobility. The comprehensive agenda outlined in this proposal therefore addresses a more general call for understanding the roots of inequality and for unbundling the structure of low-wage labour markets. We will achieve this by exploiting a combination of high-quality data, unique policy changes and richer models that explicitly consider the role of firms, their wage setting power, and the networks they are operating in.
Programme(s)
Thème(s)
Appel à propositions
(s’ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) ERC-2020-STG
Voir d’autres projets de cet appelRégime de financement
ERC-STG - Starting GrantInstitution d’accueil
WC1E 6BT London
Royaume-Uni