Minimum Wage in a Deflationary Economy: The Japanese Experience, 1994–2003

Ryo Kambayashi (), Daiji Kawaguchi and Ken Yamada

No 07-2013, Working Papers from Singapore Management University, School of Economics

Abstract: The statutory minimum wage in Japan has increased continuously for a few decades until the early 2000s even during a period of deflation. This paper examines the impact of the minimum wage on wage and employment outcomes under this unusual circumstance. We find that the minimum-wage increase resulted in the compression of the lower tail of the wage distribution among women and that the wage compression is only partially attributable to the loss of employment. The continuous increase in the minimum wage accounts for one half of the reduction in lower-tail inequality that occurred among women during the period between 1994 and 2003.

Keywords: minimum wage; wage inequality; employment loss; truncated distribution; deflation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J23 J31 J38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2013-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab, nep-lma and nep-sea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

Published in SMU Economics and Statistics Working Paper Series

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Related works:
Journal Article: Minimum wage in a deflationary economy: The Japanese experience, 1994–2003 (2013)
Working Paper: The Minimum Wage in a Deflationary Economy: The Japanese Experience, 1994-2003 (2010)
Working Paper: The Minimum Wage in a Deflationary Economy: The Japanese Experience, 1994 |2003 (2009)
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