Minimum Wages, Low Pay and Unemployment

DANILE E. MEULDERS is Professor of Economics and head of the research team exploring labour economics in the Department of Applied Economics of the Free University of Brussels (DULBEA), Belgium. She is a member of the executive committee of the Applied Econometrics Association. ROBERT PLASMAN is Professor of Economics at the Free University of Brussels (ULB) and co-director of the Department of Applied Economics of ULB (DULBEA), Belgium. He is also the general secretary of the Applied Econometrics Association. FRANOIS RYCX is Associate Professor of Economics at the Free Univers

The essays in this book, focusing on European countries, provide new empirical evidence regarding the impact of minimum wages on employment, earnings mobility among low-paid workers, job satisfaction across the earnings distribution, unemployment traps, the demand for low-skilled workers, and the existence of monopsonistic competition.Low-paid employment is a key issue for labour market policy. The essays in this book, focusing on European countries, provide new empirical evidence regarding the impact of minimum wages on employment, earnings mobility among low-paid workers, job satisfaction across the earnings distribution, unemployment traps, the demand for low-skilled workers, and the existence of monopsonistic competition.