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Google Hangout: Minimum Wage Regulations in Emerging Markets
November 18, 2014Washington, D.C.
In this Google Hangout online discussion, leading experts on minimum wage regulations in India, South Africa, China, and Southeast Asia will discuss the political forces behind minimum wage setting, the extent of compliance with minimum wage regulations, evidence on the impact of minimum wages on employment and wages, and the policy implications, if any, that can be drawn based on these experiences.

In recent years, the minimum wage has become an increasingly popular policy instrument in many emerging markets, but to date there has been little systematic comparison of country experiences to assess how the role and impact of minimum wages are different than in OECD countries. One challenge in emerging and developing economies is how to enforce minimum wage regulations when large shares of the labor force are informally employed. In this Google Hangout online discussion, leading experts on minimum wage regulations in India, South Africa, China, and Southeast Asia will discuss the political forces behind minimum wage setting, the extent of compliance with minimum wage regulations, evidence on the impact of minimum wages on employment and wages, and the policy implications, if any, that can be drawn based on these experiences.


Participants
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    Albert Park (moderator)

    Director of the Institute for Emerging Market Studies at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST)
    Albert Park is a development and labor economist who is an expert on China’s economic development. His research has been featured by the Economist, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, BBC, CNN, and NPR. Albert is a Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (London), the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA, Bonn), the International Growth Centre (Oxford/LSE/DFID), and the Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group (Chicago).
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    Uma Rani

    Research Department, International Labour Office
    Uma Rani is a Senior Development Economist with the Research Department of the International Labour Office and an IZA (Institut zur Zukunft der Arbeit) Policy Fellow. She received her PhD in Development Economics from the University of Hyderabad, India. Her areas of specialisation are informal sector, minimum wages, social policy, gender and institutions.
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    Haroon Bhorat

    Director of the Development Policy Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    Haroon Bhorat is Professor of Economics and Director of the Development Policy Research Unit (DPRU) at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. His research interests cover labour economics, poverty and income distribution. He has co-authored two books on labour market and poverty issues in South Africa, and has published more than 150 academic journal articles, book chapters and working papers.
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    Ximena Del Carpio

    Senior Economist, World Bank
    Ximena Del Carpio is a Senior Economist at the World Bank’s Social Protection and Labor Global Practice. Dr. Del Carpio has led tasks on various labor market policies, labor mobility, workforce development and labor market skills, and gender equality. While at the World Bank, she has worked in Latin America, East Asia and the Pacific, and Europe and Central Asia region, and in the Independent Evaluation Group.
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    Carl Ling

    Assistant Professor, Beijing Normal University
    Carl Lin is an assistant professor at Beijing Normal University and a research fellow at IZA in Bonn, Germany. His research is in the areas of labor economics and applied econometrics in which he focuses on minimum wages, immigration and the Chinese economy.
Virtual Discussion Series
  • Minimum Wages: This google hangout is part of a series of online panel discussions that explore the global jobs challenge.
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