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Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of health on wages of Australian workers, with a focus on gender differences and the role of macroeconomic conditions in the effects. Design/methodology/approach: The first 15 waves of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey are used to estimate a wage model that accounts for the endogeneity of health, unobserved heterogeneity and sample selection bias. Findings: The results show that, after accounting for the endogeneity of health, unobserved heterogeneity and sample selection bias, better health increases wages for Australian male workers, but not for female workers. The results also show that accounting for the endogeneity of health, unobserved heterogeneity and potential sample selection bias is important in estimating the effects of health on wages. In particular, a simple ordinary least squares estimator would underestimate the effect of health on wages for males, while overestimate it for females, and simply addressing the endogeneity of health using instrumental variables could overestimate the effect for both genders. It is also found that the effects of health on wages fall under depressed macroeconomic conditions, perhaps due to reduced job mobility and increased presentism during a recession. Originality/value: This study adds to the international literature on the effects of health on wages by providing empirical evidence from Australia. The model applied to estimate the effects takes advantage of a panel dataset to address the bias resulting potentially from all the sources of the endogeneity of health, unobserved heterogeneity and sample selection. The results indeed show that failing to address these issues would substantially bias the estimated effects of health on wages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to investigate the asymmetric impact of exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) on employees' wages via consumer prices in 15 major oil-exporting countries from sub-Saharan Africa over the period 1996-2017 using the panel threshold regression model. Design/methodology/approach: The methodology used in this article was built on non-linear panel threshold regression models developed by Hansen (1996, 1999) threshold regression. The authors first tested for the existence of threshold-effect in ERPT and wage nexus using 1,000 bootstrap replications and 400 grid searches to obtain an optimal threshold. We also estimated that asymmetric ERPT on employees' wages reacts differently when the inflation-threshold exceeds beyond a 15.12% threshold level. Findings: Our findings showed that asymmetric ERPT is incomplete and indicates that an increase by one standard deviation in real exchange rate causes a decline in employees' wages by 2.69%. Research limitations/implications: The policy implications of our results are drawn from the significant threshold estimates. However, a significant threshold value of 15.12 is an inflation-threshold estimates that split our 330 observations into the lower (upper) regimes. Further, an inflation rate beyond the threshold value is likely to have an asymmetric ERPT on employees' wages in the 15 major oil-exporting sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. Practical implications: The practical implication of the study is when ERPT exceeds the threshold, the effect of real exchange rate variations is passed on to employees' wages. It is widely believed that labor productivity increase with increased minimum wages. Nevertheless, there is contention as regards the effects on employment and poverty. As rising goods prices make the minimum wage increased homogeneous of degree zero. Social implications: Considerable increased ERPT on imported goods reduces employees' wages purchasing ability from import-dependent countries through import prices. Once it has documented, this also reduces welfare via deteriorations of marginal propensity to consume (MPC) and marginal propensity to savings (MPS). Originality/value: This article integrates labor purchasing power into the analysis of ERPT using non-linear dynamic panel heterogeneous threshold regression. It extends the Hansen (1996, 1999) dynamic panel threshold models to exchange rate pass-through in SSA economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to estimate the causal effect of minimum wages (MWs) on the wages, employment and hours of migrant workers in China, and to show their inter-relatedness and how employers can offset some of the costs through subtle adjustments. This paper also illustrates the importance of disaggregating by region and sex. Design/methodology/approach: Causal estimates are provided through difference-in-differences (DID) analysis, and robustness checks through propensity score matching. The analysis is based on micro data at the individual level from the household survey on migrant workers by the National Population and Family Planning Commission, combined with macro data regarding municipalities' population, GDP and employment information based on the China Economic Information Network database. Findings: MW increases for those paid by the month increased the earnings of both low-wage males and females. However, males tend not to experience an adverse employment effect because part of the cost increase is offset by employers increasing their monthly hours of work. Hours of work do not increase for females, so they experience an adverse employment effect. This highlights the importance of examining cost offsets such as increases in hours of work, as well as analyzing effects separately for males and females. Research limitations/implications: The reason behind why employers offset some of the cost increase for males paid by the month by increasing their hours of work, but this cost-offsetting adjustment does not occur for females is uncertain. Social implications: For workers paid by the month, employers can offset some of the cost increase by increasing their hours of work, leading to no reductions in employment. But this adjustment occurs only for males. Hours are not increased for females, but they experience reductions in employment. Clearly, MW increases have adverse effects either in the form of employment reductions (for females) or increases in hours of work for the same monthly pay (for males). Originality/value: This paper provides causal estimates through DID analysis and robustness checks through Propensity Score Matching, and also indicates how employers can offset the cost of MW increases by increasing hours for those paid by the month, resulting in no adverse employment effect for such workers, but an adverse employment effect when such an adjustment does not occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to estimate the impact of minimum wages on employment and wages in China. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses the difference-in-difference methodology to estimate the employment and wage impacts of the minimum wage increase in 2003 – a year when substantial minimum wage increases occurred in some provinces (treatment provinces) but not in others (comparison provinces). The analysis is restricted to the eastern region so as to make comparisons across relatively homogeneous and contiguous provinces with large numbers of women and rural migrant workers in urban areas – the target groups for minimum wages. Findings – The study finds that overall, minimum wages in China do have an adverse employment effect but the effect is statistically insignificant and quantitatively inconsequential. The adverse employment effects are generally larger in the more market-driven sectors, in the low-wage sector of retail and wholesale trade and restaurants, and for women; however even these effects are extremely small. Minimum wages also had no impact on aggregate wages. These estimates appear consistent with many of those based on this methodology which tends to find no substantial adverse employment effect from minimum wages. Practical implications – Good news: minimum wages do not seem to have any substantial adverse employment effect in China. Bad news: this could simply reflect the fact that they are not enforced. Originality/value – This is one of the few studies of effect of minimum wages in China in English, and using a difference-in-difference methodology as first employed by Card. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive portrait of who earns the minimum wage, in terms of the characteristics of the individual that are most important in determining this outcome. Design/methodology/approach -- This study uses individual data from the Annual Income Supplements of the New Zealand (NZ) Household Labour Force Surveys between June 1997 and June 2004. This unit record data allows isolation of workers earning the minimum wage or close to it. A more sophisticated quantitative analysis is also carried out, where the probability of earning at or below the minimum wage is modelled to estimate what individual characteristics are most significant in determining minimum wage status. Findings -- One of the key findings was that individual characteristics (such as age) are much more important than household circumstance or industry affiliations, in terms of the probability of earning minimum wage. Originality/value -- NZ has substantially increased minimum wages for teenagers and adults since 2000. For example, since the youth minimum was introduced in March 1994, it had increased by 52 per cent in real terms by 2004. Consequently, recent NZ experience offers a rare opportunity to isolate who earns the minimum wage and which subgroups are more likely to be potentially impacted by a rising minimum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - Tests for the existence of a long-run relationship between real wages and employment, utilising annual data from 1961-1996 for a panel of 12 European Union countries. Design/methodology/approach -Applies modem time series techniques organised around panel unit root and panel cointegration tests to draw sharper conclusions from the short time series that are typically available. Findings - Indicates that a long-run relationship between real wages and employment cannot be established. This being so, little success is expected in bringing down unemployment, the most pressing problem in the European Union, by reducing real wages. Originality/value - Investigates the long-run relationship between real wages and employment by conducting more reliable tests in the context of 12 European countries, namely Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, the UK, Norway and Finland over the period 1961-1996. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This study investigates, on the basis of a unique combination of two large-scale data sets, how rent sharing interacts with the gender wage gap in the Belgian private sector. Empirical findings show that individual gross hourly wages are significantly and positively related to firm profits-per-employee even when controlling for group effects in the residuals, individual and firm characteristics, industry wage differentials and endogeneity of profits. Our instrumented wage-profit elasticity is of the magnitude 0.06 and it is not significantly different for men and women. Of the overall gender wage gap (on average women earn 23.7 per cent less than men), results show that around 14 per cent can be explained by the fact that on average women are employed in firms where profits-per-employee are lower. Thus, findings suggest that a substantial part of the gender wage gap is attributable to the segregation of women in less profitable firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]