Raising the Bar: Minimum Wages and Employers’ Hiring Standards
研究了德国引入最低工资后，雇主如何提高招聘标准，用工人固定效应衡量生产率，发现最低工资使最不熟练工人的生产率分布上移4个百分点，雇主更挑剔的招聘弥补了约三分之二的工资成本上升。
Many scholars have studied the employment effects of minimum wages, but little is known about effects on the composition of hires. I investigate whether Germany’s minimum wage introduction raised hiring standards, using worker fixed effects as a proxy for worker productivity. For the least productive workers hired, the minimum wage led to a 4 percentile point shift in the productivity distribution. This increase is missed using standard observable measures of worker productivity. The effects are larger with greater pre-reform screening intensity—indicating an employer response. This more selective hiring compensates about two-thirds of higher wage costs for the least productive hires.