abstract: 'Minimum-wage policy aims to raise the real income of low-wage workers.

  Low-wage individuals may be adversely affected by minimum wages,

  however, although the empirical evidence on this point is not without

  controversy. We analyzed the effects of the January 2012 increase in

  monthly minimum wages on the wages and hours worked of low-wage workers

  in Ecuador. Individuals could have chosen to enter occupations covered

  by minimum-wage legislation or those that were not. We applied a

  difference-in-differences estimation to account for potential

  self-selection bias. We also relied on exogenous variations in minimum

  wages by sector, industry, and occupation. We constructed individual

  panel data from a household panel and performed estimates that also

  accounted for potential sample-selection bias. The results suggest a

  significant and positive effect on the wages of treated workers,

  increasing them by 0.41-0.48\% for each 1\% increase in minimum wages,

  relative to the earnings of control workers. Our results also suggest

  that effects varied by type of worker: (i) women workers received lower

  wage increases, and their hours worked were significantly and negatively

  affected, both of which may suggest a failure of the minimum wage to

  reduce the gender wage gap at the bottom of the distribution, and (ii)

  the hours worked by young workers were significantly and positively

  affected, a result that is in agreement with results found elsewhere in

  the literature. These results persisted after applying robustness checks

  to account for different control groups, full- vs. part-time jobs,

  separate regressions for heterogeneous groups, and tests for potential

  attrition and sample-selection bias. The range of effects observed

  across disparate groups of workers suggests areas in which policy change

  could be useful. The income-compression effect we found suggests that

  further studies should address the effects of minimum wage on the drop

  in income inequality observed in the data. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All

  rights reserved.'
affiliation: 'Wong, SA (Corresponding Author), ESPOL Polytech Univ, Escuela Super
  Politecn Litoral, Guayaquil, Ecuador.

  Wong, Sara A., ESPOL Polytech Univ, Escuela Super Politecn Litoral, Guayaquil, Ecuador.'
author: Wong, Sara A.
author-email: sawong@espol.edu.ec
author_list:
- family: Wong
  given: Sara A.
da: '2023-09-28'
doi: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.12.004
files: []
issn: 0305-750X
journal: WORLD DEVELOPMENT
keywords: 'Minimum wage; Difference-in-difference; Hours worked; Heterogeneous

  effects; Latin America; Ecuador'
keywords-plus: SAMPLE SELECTION; LABOR-MARKET; EMPLOYMENT
language: English
month: APR
number-of-cited-references: '45'
orcid-numbers: Wong, Sara/0000-0001-7565-1543
pages: 77-99
papis_id: 968853f4326745c24c9cce28048d7be4
ref: Wong2019minimumwage
times-cited: '7'
title: Minimum wage impacts on wages and hours worked of low-income workers in Ecuador
type: Article
unique-id: WOS:000457504700007
usage-count-last-180-days: '4'
usage-count-since-2013: '33'
volume: '116'
web-of-science-categories: Development Studies; Economics
year: '2019'