• Proceedings of KOSOMES biannual meeting
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• 2017.04a
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• pp.9-9
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• 2017

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.403-412
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• 2019

There has been a lively debate between self-employed and wage workers on the speed of minimum wage hikes. Minimum wage is a redistributive policy that evokes confrontation and conflict whereby individuals' views on the policy coincide with their material self-interest. With this in mind, the researcher analyzed whether an individual's labor market status was explanatory to his/her view on the speed of minimum wage hike. Moreover, in light of the likelihood that the varying degree to which self-employed can afford minimum wage hike affects their differential preferences for the policy, the researcher attempted to identify whether there was a moderation effect of income class on the relationship. In the actual analysis, the researcher investigated employment policy survey dataset using a multinomial logit model. The results suggest that, among self-employed, 'gradual increase' and 'rapid increase' of minimum wages are less preferred $vis-{\grave{a}}-vis$ 'minimal increase,' which is the reference. As to the moderation effect, when a self-employed has a middle-income class status, his/her negative preference for the policy is likely to be attenuated. One implication of this study is that subsidizing self-employed small business owners, who are most dissatisfied with the current speed at which minimum wages rise, would be an effective prescription on reducing social conflicts.

• Korean Architects
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• s.630
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• pp.126-128
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• 2021

• Economic Analysis
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.1-33
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• 2020

Recent discussions about a minimum wage increase (MWI) and its influence on the economy have mainly focused on the quantitative aspects, such as labor costs and employment. However, concerning the qualitative aspects, an MWI could have positive effects by enhancing firm productivity and crowding out marginal firms from the market. These positive effects of an MWI can offset, to some extent, its potential negative effects - increasing labor costs and decreasing employment, among others. In this regard we empirically examine the impact of an MWI on firm productivity (total factor productivity). Using firm level panel data from the manufacturing industry in Korea, we calculate the influence rates of a minimum wage by sector and by firm size (number of workers), and analyze its effects on firm productivity. In particular, the production functions of the firms are estimated by taking into account endogeneity among the input factors, in order to resolve the drawbacks of existing studies - underestimating the capital factor coefficient and overestimating the labor factor coefficient. This study finds that the influences of an MWI on wages, employment, and productivity are substantially different across sectors and firm sizes. While an MWI has shown to have positive influences on productivity growth in the manufacturing industry as a whole, each sector demonstrates a different direction of effect, and the degree of productivity change also varies by sector. The impacts of an MWI on firm productivity are generally estimated to be more negative for smaller firms, but in some sectors the effects are found to be positive. In addition, the wage increases resulting from an MWI seem to cause a productivity enhancement across all sectors in the manufacturing industry. The policy implications of this study are as follows. Considering the empirical findings that an MWI causes an increase in productivity in many sectors of the manufacturing industry, it would be desirable to take into consideration not only the negative side effects but also the positive effects of an MWI when designing any future minimum wage policy. Moreover, in spite of there being a uniform minimum wage, this study finds that the diverse influence rates of a minimum wage across firms have different impacts on wages, employment, and productivity across sectors or firm size. This finding could be conducive to discussions about differentiation among minimum wage schemes by sector or firm size.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.155-163
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• 2021

The study aims to investigate the effect on Philippine occupational choice of House Bill No.7787, also known as the National Wage Law, which was filled by the Philippine Congress that mandates the implementation of an across the board minimum daily wage of Php750.00 to all workers in the Philippines. This study had used the Computable General Equilibrium-Top-Down Behavioral Microsimulation approach to determine the effect of National Wage Law on occupational choice. The results of the study revealed that the implementation of said National Wage Law would affect the distribution of labor force across occupational classification such as wage workers, entrepreneurial farming activities workers, and entrepreneurial non-farming activities workers. This has resulted from a higher utility that will be derived from the wage working sector once the National Wage Law will be implemented. Further, among regions in the Philippines, the Calabarzon, National Capital Region, and Central Luzon had recorded the highest number of workers who prefer the wage income sector. The findings of the study also suggest that the Philippine agricultural sector will be greatly affected by the National Wage Law due to the preference of workers to shift from the entrepreneurial farming sector to belong to the wage sector.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.45-71
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• 2022

This paper studies potentially relevant factors affecting changes in the number of self-employed in Korea during the period of 1986-2018. The number of self-employed had increased steadily until 2002 but started to decrease around that time and had continued to decline. The increasing trend in the number of self-employed during 1986-2001 is mostly explained by demographic changes, whereas the declining trend during 2002-2018 cannot be explained by demographic factors. In this study, I consider four institutional factors that potentially affect the decrease in the number of self-employed after 2002: i) a decrease in the job-separation rate of wage workers, ii) an increase in the income tax rate applied to the self-employed, iii) an increase in minimum wages, iv) an expansion of unemployment insurance benefits. Using a search and matching model with the self-employed, I quantify the effects of these four factors on the decrease in the number of self-employed during 2002-2018. Quantitative results show that the impact of the increase in the minimum wage is relatively large, whereas the effects of the other three factors are limited. The increase in the minimum wage accounts for approximately 17.5% (0.169 million) of the decrease in the number of self-employed during 2002-2018 (0.964 million).

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.1-42
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• 2019

In this study we find that relatively high minimum wages should make the employment ratios of youth, old, and woman lower very significantly in those regions concerned, futhermore, make the overall employment ratios of those regions lower also by using a proxy variable, the Regional Minimum Wages-Half Median Wages Ratio which represents well the very stable differential structure of wage distributions among regions in Korea. In large Cities those effects become much stronger. But we find also that those effects on the rates of regional unemployment are somewhat double-faced except the case of youth because of the probable generating of many discouraged unemployed among the old and women. So, we can conclude that because of the differential regional economic situations it is not sustainable to increase the overall minimum wages uniformly and excessively and strongly necessary to explore ways toward introducing the proper system of regional minimum wages.

• Korean Architects
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• s.644
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• pp.144-146
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• 2022

• Korean Architects
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• s.653
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• pp.138-139
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• 2023

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.138-147
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• 2020

The construction field is one of the most representative job creation businesses, but it has been pointed out that the overall quality of the jobs is low because of the nature of the order-made production industry, such as unstable employment structure, aging workforce, etc.. Accordingly, the government plans to implement the "prevailing wage system" that guarantees a minimum wage for construction site workers. In reality, however, only a market wage could be used for a construction cost estimation because there was no standard for the prevailing wage. A comparative analysis of the prevailing wage and market wage was performed. This paper proposes a framework for estimating the reasonable prevailing wage in the construction industry. The results showed that the prevailing wage was estimated to be 4.7% lower than the market wage when the proposed framework is applied to the carpenters' case. This suggests that the proposed model could be used as an alternative for market wage considering the original purpose of the prevailing wage. This study will construct the basic data for scientific analysis on the wage, and finally, help estimate the reliable prevailing wage in the future.