Statutory Minimum Wage Controls

Around the world, minimum wage controls have excluded low cost competitors from labour markets, hampered firms in reducing wage costs during trade downturns, and caused various industrial economic inefficiencies as well as unemployment, poverty, and price rises. This study analyses national minimum wage fixing as a special form of political economic protectionism the equivalent of tariff barriers to low cost imports. It sees it as violating Treaty of Rome and other basic guarantees of free trade and markets in labour services in Europe. The widely used study contains a detailed critique of the recently established British national minimum wage fixing regime. Contents: 1. Minimum Wage Controls and their Effects: an Overview 2. Minimum Wage Control and De Control in Particular Countries 3. Legal Aspects of Minimum Wage Control 4. Minimum Wage Control and Unemployment 5. The Effects of Minimum Wage Controls on Employers and the Demand for Labour 6. The Effects of Minimum Wage Controls on Employees and the Supply of Labour 7. The Effects of Minimum Wage Controls on Incomes and Welfare