On July 1st,at least six Chinese provinces and cities would raise the minimum wages from today.In 2010,each province and city in China has begun to increase the lowest monthly salary for employers.
We use a highly disaggregated panel of macro data and minimum wages at the county level to investigate the processes behind minimum wage adjustments in China.Relying on random effects models,spatial econometrics techn...We use a highly disaggregated panel of macro data and minimum wages at the county level to investigate the processes behind minimum wage adjustments in China.Relying on random effects models,spatial econometrics techniques,and multilevel analyses,we document that a comparatively small number of economic variables-including the local price level and GDP per capita-are important determinants of minimum wage rates.Interactions between adjacent counties and counties of the same administrative type,and centralized mechanisms,particularly at the provincial level,also play an important role in explaining the variance in minimum wage rates across counties.Finally,we show that China's provinces are the key players for setting minimum wage rates and that,when they do so,they are not uniform in the way they weigh different economic variables.展开更多
The minimum wage policy should take into account production costs of enterprises and welfare benefits of families.This paper describes the pass-through process of the minimum wage costs in the enterprise sector and th...The minimum wage policy should take into account production costs of enterprises and welfare benefits of families.This paper describes the pass-through process of the minimum wage costs in the enterprise sector and the household sector by building a theoretical model,investigates the impact of the minimum wage adjustment on urban household consumption utility and its price pass-through mechanism from the perspective of living costs based on several sets of databases,such as household survey,supermarket prices and industrial enterprises for the first time,and further estimates the net welfare changes including income compensation and consumption utility loss.The findings of the study are as below:(1)The price transfer behavior of enterprises is the main cause of the loss of household consumption utility.The average wage level and labor costs of enterprises rise with the increase of minimum wages.Both the cost-price pass-through elasticity estimated based on the theoretical model and the minimum wage price elasticity coefficient obtained by empirical estimation show that the price transfer behavior of enterprises leads to the rise of final consumer prices;(2)With a 10% increase in minimum wages,the overall household living costs increase by 2.47%-6.76%,and the economic living costs increase by about 122-334 yuan per quarter,among which the living costs are most affected in terms of food,shoes and clothing;(3)Under the combined effect of income compensation and consumption utility loss,the bottom 20% of households and middle 60% of households will get 658 yuan and 469-556 yuan per quarter,respectively.The findings of this paper are conducive to improving the supporting minimum wage policy by taking a number of measures simultaneously,so as to provide a path reference for promoting the realization of Chinese modernization and expanding domestic demand for common prosperity for all.展开更多
文摘On July 1st,at least six Chinese provinces and cities would raise the minimum wages from today.In 2010,each province and city in China has begun to increase the lowest monthly salary for employers.
基金Findings,interpretations,and conclusions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Nordic Trust Fund,the World Bank,its affiliated organizations,its executive directors,or the governments these represent.'For China,studies that explore the effects of minimum wages on wages,employment,and other outcome variables include those by Huang et al.(2014),Lin and Yun(2016),and Demurger et al.(2021).
文摘We use a highly disaggregated panel of macro data and minimum wages at the county level to investigate the processes behind minimum wage adjustments in China.Relying on random effects models,spatial econometrics techniques,and multilevel analyses,we document that a comparatively small number of economic variables-including the local price level and GDP per capita-are important determinants of minimum wage rates.Interactions between adjacent counties and counties of the same administrative type,and centralized mechanisms,particularly at the provincial level,also play an important role in explaining the variance in minimum wage rates across counties.Finally,we show that China's provinces are the key players for setting minimum wage rates and that,when they do so,they are not uniform in the way they weigh different economic variables.
文摘The minimum wage policy should take into account production costs of enterprises and welfare benefits of families.This paper describes the pass-through process of the minimum wage costs in the enterprise sector and the household sector by building a theoretical model,investigates the impact of the minimum wage adjustment on urban household consumption utility and its price pass-through mechanism from the perspective of living costs based on several sets of databases,such as household survey,supermarket prices and industrial enterprises for the first time,and further estimates the net welfare changes including income compensation and consumption utility loss.The findings of the study are as below:(1)The price transfer behavior of enterprises is the main cause of the loss of household consumption utility.The average wage level and labor costs of enterprises rise with the increase of minimum wages.Both the cost-price pass-through elasticity estimated based on the theoretical model and the minimum wage price elasticity coefficient obtained by empirical estimation show that the price transfer behavior of enterprises leads to the rise of final consumer prices;(2)With a 10% increase in minimum wages,the overall household living costs increase by 2.47%-6.76%,and the economic living costs increase by about 122-334 yuan per quarter,among which the living costs are most affected in terms of food,shoes and clothing;(3)Under the combined effect of income compensation and consumption utility loss,the bottom 20% of households and middle 60% of households will get 658 yuan and 469-556 yuan per quarter,respectively.The findings of this paper are conducive to improving the supporting minimum wage policy by taking a number of measures simultaneously,so as to provide a path reference for promoting the realization of Chinese modernization and expanding domestic demand for common prosperity for all.
