Who’s Afraid of the Minimum Wage? Measuring the Impacts on Independent Businesses Using Matched U.S. Tax Returns
中文摘要
围绕最低工资政策的一个常见担忧是其对独立企业的影响，人们通常认为这些企业承受成本上升或将其转嫁出去的能力较弱。我们利用一个由美国全部纳税记录构建、覆盖10年期的业主-企业-工人匹配面板数据集，并以各州最低工资的变动作为识别变异，考察这些通常为中小型规模的企业如何在产品市场和劳动力市场两个维度上应对最低工资上涨。我们发现，平均而言，高度暴露行业中的企业并未大幅削减就业——它们没有解雇工人，但适度减少了兼职招聘。相反，这些企业能够以新增收入完全支付新增劳动力成本，因此业主的平均利润保持不变。然而，较高的工资下限会阻碍企业进入，尤其是生产率较低的企业，从而使这些行业中经营的独立企业数量减少约2%。但这些行业并未萎缩；相反，在位企业的应对以及进入者中强烈的正向选择，重塑了严重依赖低工资工人的行业，使其在成本冲击后呈现企业数量更少但生产率更高的格局。我们还从工人层面考察最低工资上涨如何影响可能处于弱势的个体。利用低收入工人和青年工人的面板数据，我们发现，其平均收入随最低工资上涨而大幅提高，同时其就业概率并未降低。工人流动情况表明，最低工资上涨提高了员工留任率，工人从独立企业向公司制企业的重新配置则缓冲了独立企业因招聘减少而产生的就业冲击。
Abstract
Abstract A common concern surrounding minimum wage policies is their impact on independent businesses, which are often feared to be less able to bear or pass on cost increases. We examine how these typically small and medium-size firms accommodate minimum wage increases along product and labor market margins using a matched owner-firm-worker panel data set drawn from the universe of U.S. tax records over a 10-year period, and using state minimum wage changes as identifying variation. We find that on average, firms in highly exposed industries do not substantially reduce employment—they do not lay off workers but moderately reduce part-time hiring. Instead, these firms are able to fully finance the new labor costs with new revenues, leaving average owner profits unchanged. Higher wage floors, however, forestall entry, particularly for less productive firms, reducing the number of independent firms operating in these industries by roughly 2%. Yet these industries do not shrink; instead, incumbent responses and strong positive selection among entrants reshape industries that rely heavily on low-wage workers, yielding fewer but more productive firms after the cost shock. We also take a worker-level perspective to examine how potentially vulnerable individuals are affected by minimum wage increases. Using panels of low-earning and young workers, we find that their average earnings rise substantially with the minimum wage, while they are no less likely to be employed. Worker transitions indicate that minimum wage increases boost retention and that worker reallocation from independent firms toward corporations buffers disemployment impacts from reduced hiring at independent firms.