Minimun Wage: A Bibliometric Analysis of this Research Topic

European Research Studies Journal Volume XXV, Issue 3, 2022 pp. 401-417 Minimun Wage: A Bibliometric Analysis of this Research Topic Submitted 03/09/22, 1st revision 21/09/22, 2nd revision 08/10/22, accepted 30/10/22 Myriam González-Limón 1 , Asunción Rodríguez-Ramos 2 Isabel Novo-Corti 3 Abstract: Purpose: In this study, a bibliometric analysis of the scientific literature on the minimum wage is carried out to detect its evolution and point out future research trends. Approach/Methodology/Design: The bibliometric analysis of the minimum wage based on an extensive examination of publications indexed in Web of Science (WoS) de Clarivate Analytics. was conducted. This database is one of the most complete. It supports the reliability of the bibliometric analysis. The period of the analysis covered the years 1962- 2021. The analysis was carried out with the support of the VOSviewer software, version 1.6.18. The units of analysis used for the thematic areas were the keywords, KeyWords Plus (KW+); with them, bibliometric maps were created by applying a methodology based on coword analysis, clustering techniques and visualisation techniques. Findings: Two thousand eight hundred twenty-two articles in scientific journals have been detected. Groups of countries have been identified, analysing the subject matter, authors, their belonging organisations and the subject areas of the studies, and their evolution over time. In addition, it was recognised how minimum wage publications are clustered. Practical Implications: The identification of the most productive publications with the highest number of citations can be used by future authors to define the most appropriate publication strategy. Likewise, the identification of the most relevant authors in the field can be helpful for decision-makers to meet potential collaborators. Originality/Value: To the authors' knowledge, this is the first bibliometric analysis of the literature on minimum wages. This article provides an exhaustive and up-to-date bibliometric analysis of this subject, allowing us to establish existing patterns and trends. Keywords: Minimum wage, bibliometric analysis, research trends. JEL classification: J31, Z21, C88. Paper Type: Research article. 1 Department of Economic Analysis and Political Economy.University of Seville, Spain. e-mail: [email protected]; 2 Department of Economics and Economic History. University of Seville, Spain. e-mail: [email protected]; 3 Department of Economics, ECOBAS (Economics and Business Administration for Society) inter university Research Center, University of A Coruña, Spain. e-mail: isabel.novo.co[email protected]; Minimun Wage: A Bibliometric Analysis of this Research Topic 402 Acknowledgements: The research presented in this article has been funded by the Junta de Andalucía (Consejería de Economía, Conocimiento, Empresas y Universidad) within the framework of the PAIDI 2020 Project: Wage income policy: minimum wage and collective bargaining (P20_01180). 1. Introduction This study carries out a bibliometric analysis of the scientific literature on the minimum wage, detecting and indicating the evolution and future research trends. This work helps us to understand the academic scope of the subject of the minimum wage. Its strengths rely on the discussed contents and the identification of the countries with the highest scientific production, the most prolific authors and the leading organisations. The study is novel in that no systematic review or bibliometric analysis has been conducted. Bibliometric research uses quantitative statistical data analysis in the published literature to study publication patterns within a scientific field (De Bellis, 2009). The bibliometric analysis involves using a set of quantitative metrics, techniques and tools to analyse references in the scientific literature (Donthu et al., 2021). Bibliometric studies are mainly based on quantitative analysis of publications about a specific phenomenon (Liu et al., 2019). This method of analysis is widely recognised and used for examining scientific discourse (Ellegaard and Wallin, 2015) and is an effective procedure for understanding how a field of research emerges and develops (van Raan, 2005; Zhang et al., 2016). From a bibliometric perspective, no work has been done that can answer the following general questions: how is the conceptual and thematic structure of the minimum wage shaped; which specialisms and sub-specialisms are at the centre of gravity of the subject; how has research in this field evolved; or what are the emerging research fronts and future challenges? 2. Objectives and Research Questions The main objective of this paper is to analyse the developments and progress of the internationally published scientific literature on minimum wage from a bibliometric perspective. Through a combination of co-citation analysis, co-word analysis and graphical representation techniques, this research has the following objectives: O1: To identify and visualise existing academic networks in the field of minimum wage research, their potentials and possible gaps. O1A: To identify the most productive countries, authors and organisations. O1B: To know the most relevant sources and seminal works. Myriam González-Limón, Asunción Rodríguez-Ramos, Isabel Novo-Corti 403 O2: Identify and visualise the most relevant topics and trends in minimum wage research through keyword analysis. 3. Materials and Methods The procedure was developed in several stages: a) data collection, b) selection and processing of the study units, and c) processing, analysis and visualisation of the study units. For the clustering and visualisation of the results, the software VOSviewer, version 1.6.18, developed by van Eck and Waltman, a computer tool for the graphical visualisation of bibliometric networks, was used. This software has been applied in this study in a similar way to other recent work (Kumar et al., 2022; 2020; Hassan et al., 2021; Handoko, 2020; Tang et al., 2020). The literature was identified and compiled through online searches by conducting a comprehensive scan of Clarivate Analytics' Web of Science (WoS), a very comprehensive, scientifically recognised database with global geographic scope, international distribution and high-impact quality indicators. As one of the most comprehensive, it supports the reliability of the bibliometric analysis. The search was conducted in such a way as to be equivalent to the following logical expression in "topic" or topics including the terms in the -title, abstract, author keywords and keywords Pluscontaining "minimum wage". The study period spans from 1962 to the end of 2021, where fifty-nine years are analysed. The choice of the starting date is motivated by the fact that the first article published in WoS on the minimum wage was in 1962. Since bibliometric analyses focus mainly on academic journals, only articles published in "journals and review" were selected, discarding other options such as editorials, books, book chapters and conference proceedings. The selected language of writing was English. The search for articles was closed on 7 June 2022. Retrieved documents were directly downloaded in plain text format to be processed and analysed. As a result of the search, a total of 2,822 documents were obtained. A processing, analysis and visualisation of the study units have been carried out. Firstly, the evolution of the number of publications and citations per year is analysed; the number of articles by WoS categories and publishing journals. The VOSviewer software, version 1.6.18, was used to group and visualise the results. We have identified groups of authors analysing the subject matter, the organisations to which the researchers belong, the countries and subject areas of the studies, and their evolution over time. Minimun Wage: A Bibliometric Analysis of this Research Topic 404 The units of analysis used for the thematic areas were the keywords, KeyWords Plus (KW+); with them, bibliometric maps were created by applying a methodology based on co-word analysis, clustering techniques and visualisation techniques. Figure 1. Diagram of study selection Source: Own elaboration. Table 1. Inclusion and exclusion criteria and bibliometric indicators Inclusion criteria Exclusion criteria Bibliometric indicator Period: From the first published article until the end of December 2021 EX1: Articles published after 2021 Number of documents per year of publication CI2: All categories in WOS EX2: None Number of citations per year CI3: Type of documents: journal articles and review articles EX3: Papers from publishers, Books, Chapters of books, Proceedings Number of journal articles (2771) Number of review articles (51) CI4: Language EX4: published in non-English language. Number of publications of journal articles and review articles in English (2822) CI5: Topic "minimum wage EX5: Purification of articles containing in the subject "minimum salary". Most prolific countries Most productive organizations/institutions Most productive authors Source: Own elaboration based on records obtained from WoS database by VOSviewer. 4. Results and Discussion 4.1 Descriptive Bibliometric Analysis of the Mínimum Wage The results of the bibliometric analysis of the 2,822 scientific articles obtained from the WoS database published between 1962 and 2021 are shown below. Of the entire study period (1962 to 2021), the year 2020 reached the highest peak of scientific Web of Science Topics (title, abstract, author keywords and keywords Plus) “minimum wage“ (3.666) (n=3.582) hasta 2021 Only articles (3.083) and review papers (53) (3.136) In English (n=2.822) Myriam González-Limón, Asunción Rodríguez-Ramos, Isabel Novo-Corti 405 production, with 261 articles. Three periods can be distinguished, the first from 1962 to 1997, with low scientific production on the subject; the second, with no production for a decade, from 1998 to 2008; and the third, from 2009 to 2021, with an upward trend in articles on the minimum wage. Since the beginning of the third period, 2009, there has been a steady increase, although with a slight decrease in 2010. In the last year of the study, 2021, a decrease is observed, perhaps as a consequence of COVID-19, although this statement should be contrasted; it coincides with other bibliometric studies (González-Limón and Rodríguez-Ramos, 2022; González-Limón et al., 2022). Table 2. Techniques implemented in the bibliometric analysis of this study. Techniques Key concepts Analysis based on the number of publications and citations per year. - The trend of publications from 1962 to 2021 on minimum wage shows an increase in recent years. - The years with the most studies are 2020 and 2021, with a slight decrease in research output in 2021. - The evolution of the number of citations by year of publication. Year with the highest number of citations and most cited article. Grouping - To extract the most outstanding topics in the field of research. - To know the authorship of articles by country. - Examine the most influential authors in the research field. - Locate the most prolific research Organizations/Centers/Universities on the topic. - Categorize the topics identified through keywords, KeyWords Plus (KW+). Source: Own elaboration based on records obtained from WoS database by VOSviewer. The articles have been published in different WoS categories. Table 3 shows the ten WoS categories where most articles on the subject are published, accounting for 89 % of the production. The first category, "Economics", accounts for 44.11 % of the publications analysed. In the second place, "Industrial Relations Labor", with 494 documents, accounts for 17.50 %, less than half as many publications as "Economics". The following two in the ranking, "Public Environmental Minimun Wage: A Bibliometric Analysis of this Research Topic 406 Occupational Health" and "Political Science", account for 5.74 % and 4.35 %, respectively, far behind the values of the first two WoS categories, "Economics" and "Industrial Relations Labor". Figure 2. Number of publications and citations (1962-2021). Source: Own elaboration based on records obtained from WoS database by VOSviewer. Table 3. The number of publications and categories from WoS database Web of Science Categories (10) Number of publications (2822) Economics 1245 Industrial Relations Labor 494 Public Environmental Occupational Health 162 Political Science 123 Law 92 Management 88 Public Administration 84 Development Studies 81 Social Sciences Mathematical Methods 77 Sociology 77 Myriam González-Limón, Asunción Rodríguez-Ramos, Isabel Novo-Corti 407 Web of Science Categories (10) Number of publications (2822) Total 2523 (10 Categories) Source: Own elaboration based on records obtained from WoS database by VOSviewer. Table 4 shows the titles of the ten journals that publish the most articles on the subject. They represent 11.48% of the total production analysed. The Journal of Labor Research is ranked number 1, with 48 papers, followed by Labor Economics, with 45 papers, and Monthy Labor Review, with 36 papers, in third place, even though the journals with the highest production on the subject are the Journal of Labor Research, Labor Economics and Monthy Labor Review. However, the analysis of the co-citation of sources revealed the three most relevant journals: American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics and Industrial and Labor Relations Review. Table 4. Titles of the ten journals containing the highest number of articles Publication Titles (10) Number of articles Journal of Labor Research 48 Labor Economics 45 Monthly Labor Review 36 Journal of Industrial Relations 34 Industrial Labor Relations Review 30 British Journal of Industrial Relations 29 ILR Review 27 Economics Letters 26 International Labour Review 26 Applied Economics 23 Total 324 Source: Own elaboration based on records obtained from WoS database by VOSviewer. We have identified groups of authors who analyse the subject matter, the organisations to which the researchers belong, the countries and the thematic areas of the studies, and their evolution over time. We present the results obtained. Table 5 shows the number of publications of the ten most productive authors. The most prolific of all is David Neumark of the University of California, Irvine (USA), who has also collaborated with the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) in Germany. In second place is Alan Manning, who has been attached to the Department of Minimun Wage: A Bibliometric Analysis of this Research Topic 408 Economics and Political Science at the London School of Economics from 1992 to 2022. In 2022 he is seconded to the Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics (LSE). Table 5. Top ten most prolific authors Authors(10) Number of publications Organisation Neumark, David 32 University of California Irvine IRVINE, CA, USA IZA Institute Labor Economics (ALEMANIA) Manning, Alan 17 London School Economics & Political Science Econ LONDON, ENGLAND Centre for Economic Performance (LSE) Levin-Waldman, Oren M. 14 Demograph Specialist PoliticalVip Com Global Inst Sustainable Prosper & Labor Market BRONX, NY, USA Machin, Stephen 14 London School Economics & Political Science LONDON, ENGLAND Wascher, William L. 14 Federal Reserve System Board of Governors Div Res & Stat WASHINGTON, DC, USA Gunderson, Morley 13 University of Toronto Ctr Ind Relat & Human Resources TORONTO, ON, CANADA Sabia, Joseph J. 12 San Diego State University Ctr Hlth Econ & Policy Studies SAN DIEGO, CA, USA IZA Institute Labor Economics (desde 2017) Kanbur, Ravi 11 Cornell University ITHACA, NY, USA IZA Institute Labor Economics (2019) Reich, Michael 11 Dessau Community Gen Hosp Dept Internal Med DESSAU ROSSLAU, GERMANY Tavares, Darlene Mara D. 11 Universidade Federal do Triangulo Mineiro Dept Enfermagem Educ & Saude Comunitaria UBERABA, MG, BRAZIL Conselho Nacl Desenvolvimento Cient & Tecnol CNP (desde 2022) Total 149 Source: Own elaboration based on records obtained from WoS database by VOSviewer. Myriam González-Limón, Asunción Rodríguez-Ramos, Isabel Novo-Corti 409 The most cited article was published in 1996 in the journal Econometrica, with 1,231 citations and with an annual average of 45.59. The authors are DiNardo, J., Fortin, N.M., and Lemieux, T. (1996). Labour market institutions and the distribution of wages, 1973-1992: A semiparametric approach. Econometrica, vol 64(5). pp. 1001-1044, DOI10.2307/2171954. The co-citation analysis of papers identified the work of Dinardo, Fortin and Lemieux (1996), Card and Krueger (1994); Meyer (1995); and Dube, Lester and Reich (2010) as seminal contributions on the minimum wage. The co-citation analysis of authors revealed the different academic schools of thought on the subject, with authors such as D. Neumark, J.J. Sabia, A. Dube, W. Wascher, M. Reich and T.D. Stanley is standing out. 4.2 Network Analyses The total number of authors publishing on minimum wages is 5,861. 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