TY  - JOUR
AU  - Abowd,John M.
AU  - Kramarz,Francis
AU  - Margolis,David N.
TI  - Minimum Wages and Employment in France and the United States
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 6996
PY  - 1999
Y2  - March 1999
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6996
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6996.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
John M. Abowd
School of Industrial and Labor Relations
261 Ives Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
Tel: 607/255-8024
Fax: 866/873-9078
E-Mail: John.Abowd@cornell.edu

Francis Kramarz
CREST-INSEE
15 blvd Gabriel Peri
Malakoff CEDEX, 92245
FRANCE
E-Mail: kramarz@ensae.fr

David N. Margolis
AB  - We use longitudinal individual wage and employment data in France and the United States to investigate the effect of changes in the real minimum wage on an individual's employment status.  We find that movements in both French and American real minimum wages are associated with mild employment effects in general and very strong effects on workers employed at the minimum wage.  In the French case, a 1% increase in the real minimum wage decreases the future employment probability of a man (respectively, a woman) currently employed at the minimum wage by 1.3% (1.0%).  In the United States, a decrease in the real minimum wage of 1% increases the probability that a man (woman) employed at the minimum wage came from unemployment in the previous year by 0.4% (1.6%).
ER  -