PMMA-12869 Evidence on the Impacts of Minimum Wage on Labor Market Outcomes: The Case of Bolivia

Abstract

Economic theory suggests that minimum wages may lead to unemployment; nevertheless, empirical evidence in developed economies stays ambiguous. Evidence from developing countries is even more heterogenous due to the low law enforcement and weaker labor market institutions. Thus, our aim is to assess the impact of minimum wage increases on labor market outcomes in Bolivia, a country characterized by weak law compliance and high informality. Our identification strategy exploits differences in exposure to minimum wage increases across subsets of population for the period 2006-2013. Our results show positive and significant effects over real wages for men with no effects on employment, informalization or hours worked. Furthermore, we find evidence of gender discrimination since women are prone to suffer unemployment and informalization while not benefiting from higher real wages as men do.

Members

Project leader: Marcelo Nicolas Claure Ramirez

Project researchers: Christian Valencia | Alejandra Leyton | Karenth Vanessa Sánchez Bohórquez

Scientific mentors: Jorge Davalos

Journal publication

Authors	Co-Authors	Title of paper	Title of Economic Review	Bibliographic references
Jorge Davalos	Marcelo Nicolas Claure Ramirez, Alejandra Leyton	The gender effects of the minimum wage under weak compliance with labour regulations: the case of Bolivia	Applied Economics	Published online (May 2020)

Working Papers

	Title	Modified	Size	Comments	Recommendations
	Evidence of the impacts of minimum wages on labor market outcomes: The case of Bolivia	2017-02-22	697.71kB	0	0

Policy Briefs

	Title	Modified	Size	Comments	Recommendations
	The impact of minimum wage raises on the Bolivian labor market	2017-02-15	343.04kB	0	0

Final report

	Title	Modified	Size	Comments	Recommendations
		2016-09-02	756.65KB	0	0

Proposal

	Title	Modified	Size	Comments	Recommendations
		2016-04-29	791.7KB	1	1