Publications by Ben Zipperer
Credible Research Designs for Minimum Wage Studies: A Response to Neumark, Salas and Wascher
May 1, 2017 • Scholarly Publications • By Sylvia A. Allegretto, Arindrajit Dube, Michael Reich and Ben Zipperer
ILR Review 70(3):559-592. May 2017. [accordions] [accordion title="Abstract" load="hide"]The authors assess the critique by Neumark, Salas, and Wascher (2014) of minimum wage studies that found small effects on teen employment. Data from 1979 to 2014 contradict NSW; the authors show that the disemployment suggested by a model assuming parallel trends across U.S. states mostly reflects differential pre-existing trends. A data-driven LASSO procedure that optimally corrects for state trends produces a small employment elasticity (–0.01). Even a highly sparse model rules out substantial disemployment effects, contrary to NSW’s claim that the authors discard too much information. Synthetic controls do place more weight on nearby states—confirming the value of regional controls—and generate an elasticity of ?0.04. A similar elasticity (?0.06) obtains from a design comparing contiguous border counties, which the authors show to be good controls. NSW’s preferred matching estimates mix treatment and control units, obtain poor matches, and find the highest employment declines where the relative minimum wage falls. These findings refute NSW’s key claims. [/accordion] [/accordions]
Credible research designs for minimum wage studies
August 1, 2016 • Brief • By Ben Zipperer
The employment consequences of increasing the minimum wage in the United States continue to be a major subject of debate, but how researchers choose to estimate the effects of raising…
Credible Research Designs for Minimum Wage Studies: A Response to Neumark, Salas and Wascher
September 1, 2015 • Working Papers • By Sylvia A. Allegretto, Arindrajit Dube, Michael Reich and Ben Zipperer
Abstract The authors assess the critique by Neumark, Salas, and Wascher (2014) of minimum wage studies that found small effects on teen employment. Data from 1979 to 2014 contradict NSW;…
Credible Research Designs for Minimum Wage Studies
September 1, 2013 • Working Papers • By Arindrajit Dube, Ben Zipperer, Michael Reich and Sylvia A. Allegretto
Abstract We assess alternative research designs for minimum wage studies. States in the U.S. with larger minimum wage increases differ from others in business cycle severity, increased inequality and polarization,…