The Contribution of the Minimum Wage to US Wage Inequality over Three Decades: A Reassessment
利用额外十年的数据和工具变量策略，重新评估最低工资对美国工资不平等的影响，发现其降低低端工资不平等的效果远小于以往估计，且存在溢出效应但可能源于报告误差。
We reassess the effect of minimum wages on US earnings inequality using additional decades of data and an IV strategy that addresses potential biases in prior work. We find that the minimum wage reduces inequality in the lower tail of the wage distribution, though by substantially less than previous estimates, suggesting that rising lower tail inequality after 1980 primarily reflects underlying wage structure changes rather than an unmasking of latent inequality. These wage effects extend to percentiles where the minimum is nominally nonbinding, implying spillovers. We are unable to reject that these spillovers are due to reporting artifacts, however.