Volume 11, Number 1 (Winter) 1976
Cotterill, Philip G., and Walter J. Wadycki. 1976. "Teenagers and the Minimum Wage in Retail Trade." Journal of Human Resources 11(1):69-85.
In concentrating on the impact of minimum wage policy on unemployment rates, existing research has produced little evidence about the degree of substitutability between teenage and adult labor. Yet this issue is primary in determining the potential gain in additional jobs for teenagers from a differential minimum wage. This paper attempts to assess the impact of minimum wage policy on the age distribution of employment in retail trade. The central findings are that while minimum wage policy appears to have raised relative wage rates in SMSAs where minimum wage impact was greater, the wage rate differential attributable to higher minimum wage coverage was not associated with a lower utilization of teenagers in those SMSAs.
The authors are, respectively, Assistant Professor of Economics, Miami University (Ohio), and Associate Professor of Quantitative Methods, University of Illinois at Chicago Circle. Data and processing support were provided by the Office of Economic Opportunity and the computer centers of Miami University and the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle. Initial research support for Philip Cotterill was provided by the Brookings Institution under the Economic Policy Fellowship Program. Martin J. Ringo and Dave Ferguson made several helpful suggestions at various stages of the paper.
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