Abstract: David Card and Alan Krueger dedicate their minimum wage book Myth and Measurement (1995) to Richard Lester, an institutional‐industrial relations labor economist and key figure in the marginalist controversy of the 1940s. Lester claimed a minimum wage law's employment effect is likely zero or near‐zero, the same as Card and Krueger found a half‐century later, but they did not follow Lester's theoretical explanation and instead advanced a marginalist dynamic monopsony model. Numerous empirical studies have followed, with substantial evidence pointing to a relatively small and perhaps zero employment effect, but existing theoretical models, such as competitive, search, and monopsony, remain unable to provide a satisfactory explanation. Hence, to advance the minimum wage research program this article synthesizes and formalizes from Lester's writings an alternative institutionalist model of labor markets, represented in a set of five diagrams. The model provides considerable new insight and explanation for a zero/near‐zero employment effect, anchored on lack of a well‐defined labor demand curve, alternative cost‐absorbing managerial actions, and aggregate demand effect.

中文翻译：

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理查德莱斯特的劳动力市场制度-产业关系模型和接近零的最低工资就业效应：模型卡和克鲁格被忽视但不应该有

摘要：大卫·卡德 (David Card) 和艾伦·克鲁格 (Alan Krueger) 将他们的最低工资书 Myth and Measurement (1995) 献给了制度-产业关系劳工经济学家、1940 年代边缘主义争论中的关键人物理查德·莱斯特 (Richard Lester)。莱斯特声称最低工资法的就业效应可能为零或接近零，这与卡德和克鲁格半个世纪后发现的一样，但他们没有遵循莱斯特的理论解释，而是提出了一个边际主义动态垄断模型。随后进行了大量实证研究，大量证据表明就业效应相对较小，甚至可能为零，但现有的理论模型，如竞争、搜索和垄断，仍然无法提供令人满意的解释。因此，为了推进最低工资研究计划，本文从莱斯特的著作中综合并形式化了劳动力市场的另一种制度主义模型，用一组五个图表表示。该模型为零/接近零就业效应提供了相当多的新见解和解释，基于缺乏明确定义的劳动力需求曲线、替代成本吸收管理行动和总需求效应。