Most minimum wage studies are identified on small, plentiful, and expected wage changes, spread out over time. A recent set of changes have instead been large, unexpected, and quick, following the "Fight for $ 15" movement. Alberta is the first state or province to have this $ 15 minimum wage,...

This paper proposes an empirical approach to decompose the distributional effects of minimum wages into effects for workers moving out of employment, workers moving into employment, and workers continuing in employment. We estimate the effects of the minimum wage on the hazard rate for wages,...

Minimum wages decrease employment in competitive markets, but can increase it in monopsonistic markets so long as they do not exceed the marginal product of labour. We find evidence of non-monotonicity both by market structure and minimum wage level. Minimum wage hikes initially increase hours...

Monopsonists suppress employment and wages so as to avoid matching higher wages to their existing employees. Minimum wage hikes force them to pay their existing employees more, reducing the marginal cost of hiring and increasing both wages and employment. However, once the minimum wage exceeds...

We use Statistics Canada's Labour Force Survey to explore the labor market impacts of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Specifically, we adopt a unique identification strategy to examine the heterogeneous causal effects of the COVID-19 economic shutdown by governments on hours worked across the...

Using data from the Current Population Surveys, we investigate the aggregate and distributional consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic and the associated public policy response on labor earnings and unemployment benefits in the United States up until February 2021. We find that year-on-year...