Efficiency Wages and the Economic Effects of the Minimum Wage: Evidence from a Low‐Wage Labour Market*
利用1999年英国国家最低工资引入的自然实验，研究低工资行业（养老院）的效率工资效应，发现最低工资可能作为效率工资降低了监督成本，解释了工资大幅上涨但就业影响温和的现象。
Abstract This article exploits a natural experiment provided by the 1999 introduction of the UK National Minimum Wage (NMW) to test for efficiency wage considerations in a low‐wage sector, the UK residential care homes industry. The empirical results provide support to the wage‐supervision trade‐off prediction of the shirking model and suggest that the NMW may have operated as an efficiency wage in the care homes sector, leading to a reduction in supervision costs. These findings can explain earlier evidence suggesting that although the NMW introduction increased wages dramatically in the care homes sector, it generated only moderate negative employment effects.