TY  - JOUR
AU  - Maloney, William F
AU  - Mendez, Jairo Nunez
TI  - Measuring the Impact of Minimum Wages: Evidence from Latin America
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 9800
PY  - 2003
Y2  - June 2003
DO  - 10.3386/w9800
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9800
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9800.pdf
M1  - published as William Maloney, Jairo Mendez. "Measuring the Impact of Minimum Wages.  Evidence from Latin America," in James J. Heckman and Carmen Pagés, editors, "Law and Employment: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean" University of Chicago Press (2004)

AB  - This paper first provides an overview of the levels of minimum wages in Latin America and their true impact on the distribution of wages using both numerical measures and kernel density plots. It identifies  numeraire' effects higher in the wage distribution and  lighthouse' or reference effects in the unregulated or informal' sector.  The final section then employs panel employment data from Colombia, a country where minimum wages seem high and very binding, to quantify the effects of an increase on wages and employment.  The evidence suggests that in the Latin American context, the minimum wage has impacts beyond those usually contemplated in the advanced country literature.
ER  -