Does an Increase in the Minimum Wage Decrease Employment? A Meta-Analysis of Canadian Studies

I conduct a meta-analysis of the Canadian minimum wage literature, using meta-regression methods to determine whether this literature has a publication bias and the size of the empirical effect after adjusting for this bias. For teenagers, the demographic group with the largest share of minimum wage workers and thus providing the findings of most interest to policy-makers and legislators, I find no evidence of a publication bias and a minimum wage elasticity of about −0.27. I also discuss the implications of my findings for researchers and policy-makers.