This paper revisits the effect of minimum wages on employment by taking advantage of a unique institutional setting and data from Russia. The main strength of the paper is the use, for identification purposes, of the large variation in labor market outcomes as well as in the minimum wage across...

We take advantage of a natural experiment in the minimum wage setting in Russia to study the employment consequences of large hikes in the minimum wage. In September 2007, the Russian government raised the federal minimum wage from 1,100 to 2,300 Rubles and simultaneously gave the regions the...