We explore the suitability of the minimum wage as a policy instrument for reducing emerging income inequality created by new technologies. For this, we implement a binding minimum wage in a task-based framework, in which tasks are conducted by machines, low-skill, and high-skill workers. In this framework, an increasing minimum wage reduces the inequality between the low-skill wage and the other factor prices, whereas the share of income of low-skill workers in the national income is nonincreasing. Then, we analyze the impact of an automating economy along the extensive and intensive margins. In a setting with a minimum wage, it can be shown that automation at the extensive margin and the creation of new, labor-intensive tasks do not increase the aggregate output in general, as the displacement of low-skill workers counteracts the positive effects of cost-savings. Finally, we highlight a potential trade-off between less inequality of the factor prices and greater inequality of the income distribution when a minimum wage is introduced into an automating economy.

中文翻译：

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自动化经济中的最低工资

我们探讨了将最低工资作为减少新技术造成的新兴收入不平等的政策工具的适用性。为此，我们在基于任务的框架中实施了具有约束力的最低工资，其中任务由机器、低技能和高技能工人执行。在这个框架下，提高最低工资减少了低技能工资与其他要素价格之间的不平等，而低技能工人的收入在国民收入中的份额没有增加。然后，我们分析了自动化经济对广泛和集约利润的影响。在最低工资的情况下，可以表明，广泛的自动化和新的劳动密集型任务的创造通常不会增加总产出，因为低技能工人的流离失所抵消了成本节约的积极影响。最后，我们强调了在自动化经济中引入最低工资时，要素价格的不平等程度较小和收入分配的不平等程度较大之间的潜在权衡。