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Minimum Wage Increases and Vacancies

Author

Listed:
  • Marianna Kudlyak

    (FRB San Francisco, Hoover, IZA, CEPR)

  • Murat Tasci

    (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland)

  • Didem Tuzemen

    (Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City)

Abstract
Using a unique data set and a novel identification strategy, we estimate the effect of minimum wage increases on job vacancy postings. Utilizing occupation-specific county level vacancy data from the Conference Board’s Help Wanted Online for 2005-2018, we find that state-level minimum wage increases lead to substantial declines in existing and new vacancy postings in occupations with a larger share of workers who earn close to the prevailing minimum wage. We estimate that a 10 percent increase in the state level effective minimum wage reduces vacancies by 2.4 percent in the same quarter, and the cumulative effect is as large as 4.5 percent a year later. The negative effect on vacancies is more pronounced for occupations where workers typically have lower educational attainment (high school or less) and in counties with higher poverty rates. We argue that our focus on vacancies versus on employment has a distinct advantage of highlighting a mechanism through which minimum wage hikes affect labor demand. Our finding of a negative effect on vacancies is not inconsistent with the wide range of findings in the literature about the effect of minimum wage changes on employment, which is driven by changes in both hiring and separation margins.

Suggested Citation

  • Marianna Kudlyak & Murat Tasci & Didem Tuzemen, 2022. "Minimum Wage Increases and Vacancies," Koç University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum Working Papers 2203, Koc University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum.
    • Handle: RePEc:koc:wpaper:2203
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Nicolás Francisco Abbate & Bruno Jimnez, 2022. "Do Minimum Wage Hikes Lead to Employment Destruction? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design in Argentina," Asociación Argentina de Economía Política: Working Papers 4533, Asociación Argentina de Economía Política.
    3. Bustos, Emil, 2023. "The Effect of Centrally Bargained Wages on Firm Growth," Working Paper Series 1456, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Minimum Wage; Vacancies; Hiring; Search and Matching.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General
    • J41 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Labor Contracts
    • J63 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

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