February 2007

IZA DP No. 2595: A Persistence Model of the National Minimum Wage

This paper utilises the panel element of the BHPS (waves 9 to 14) to examine the dynamics of the National Minimum Wage (NMW) introduced to Britain in 1999. Specifically a persistence measure based on a random effects probit model for those affected by the NMW is constructed. The conditional probabilities imply some degree of state dependence, but there is also a considerable amount of turnover from one year to the next among those affected by the NMW.