Files
Abstract
In the empirical literature on minimum wage enforcement, the standard approach is to
measure the number of violations, not their depth. In this paper we present a family of
violation indices which, by analogy with poverty indices, can emphasize the depth of
violation to different degrees. The standard measure is a special case of this family of
indices, but other members of the family highlight the depth of violation. We present an
application to South Africa to show that the depth of violation matters, and is not captured
by the standard measure in actual situations.