@TechReport{iza:izadps:dp4335,
            	author={Boeri, Tito},
            	title={Setting the Minimum Wage},
            	year={2009},
	month={Jul},
            	institution={Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)},
            	address={Bonn},
            	type={IZA Discussion Paper},
            	number={4335},
            	url={https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp4335},
	abstract={The process leading to the setting of the minimum wage so far has been fairly overlooked by economists. This paper suggests that this is a serious limitation as the setting regime contributes to explain cross-country variation in the fine-tuning of the minimum wage, hence in the way in which the trade-off between reducing poverty among working people and shutting down low productivity jobs is addressed. There are two common ways of setting national minimum wages: they are either government legislated or are the outcome of collective bargaining agreements, which are extended erga omnes to all workers. We develop a simple model relating the level of the minimum wage to the setting regime. Next, we exploit a new data set on minimum wages in 66 countries that had already or introduced a minimum wage in the period 1981-2005 to test the implications of the model. We find that a Government legislated minimum wage is lower than a wage floor set within collective agreements. This effect survives to several robustness checks and hints at a causal relation between the setting regime and the level of the minimum wage.},
	keywords={statutory minimum;collective bargaining;minimum wages},
            }