英文摘要 |
During 2012-2019, minimum wages in Taiwan were raised annually and the wage inequality of the bottom half of the wage distribution decreased substantially. This study investigates the association between the raising of the minimum wage and the decrease in lower-tail wage inequality in Taiwan by using the data of the Manpower Utilization Survey of DGBAS (Taiwan). The wage inequality is measured as the difference between the log of the p^(th) percentile wage and the log of the 50^(th) percentile wage in the wage distribution. This study uses the cross-county variation in effective minimum wage to identify the impact of minimum wage on wage inequality. The results show that the raising of the minimum wage during 2012-2019 accounts for the entire drop in the 10^(th) percentile wage inequality. As minimum wage was raised 5%, the 10^(th) percentile wage inequality dropped 2.685% accordingly. Meanwhile, the raising of the minimum wage was significantly associated with decreases in the 20^(th) to 40^(th) percentile wage inequality with decreasing rates. In constrast, minimum wages show insignificant impact on the 60^(th) to 90^(th) percentile wage inequality, which justifies the identification assumption used in this study. |