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The objective of this study is to construct a theoretical framework concerning wage determination, grounded in principles and supplemented by conventional theories. It discusses the Islamic perspectives on minimum wage and examines contemporary challenges and intricacies in its application.

This study uses thematic analysis to create the conceptual framework, drawing upon a review of pertinent literature such as academic papers, books and articles published up to 2023.

The framework encompasses various categories, namely, employee characteristics, job characteristics, market factors, compensation practices and Islamic principles. Each category consists of multiple variables. The resulting framework offers a holistic and ethically grounded methodology for wage determination, aligning with both Islamic and conventional perspectives. This study notes the absence of a universally agreed-upon minimum wage. Islamic economics faces challenges due to the unclear application of principles, limited awareness, legal constraints and a lack of empirical evidence on wage systems, along with complexities in their implementation.

The paper’s limited scope focuses solely on the Islamic perspective on wage determination, without comparing it to the conventional viewpoint. This may have implications for future research.

The insights on Islamic principles and wage determination guide scholars and policymakers interested in promoting just and equitable wages.

This study is distinct in its integration of various factors to propose an all-encompassing framework for wage determination, rooted in the Quran and principles, while also reinforcing the framework with conventional theories. Additionally, it adds to the growing body of literature by investigating the Quran’s stance and principles on minimum wage, as well as discusses the challenges involved in implementing an Islamic approach to wage determination, which has received limited attention in Islamic literature.

The purpose of this chapter is to assess the importance of individual social capital characteristics in determining wages, both directly through their valuation by employers and indirectly through their impact on individual occupational choice. We find that a person’s level of sociability and care for others works through both channels to explain wage differences between social and nonsocial occupations. Additionally, expected wages in each occupation type are found to be at least as important as a person’s level of social capital in choosing a social occupation. We make use of restricted 2000 Decennial Census and 2000 Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey.

During the 1980s Latin America’s inflation problem worsened and successive stabilization programmes failed in many countries. This led to an increasing concern about the degree of rigidity imposed on the economy by different labour market structures built up over many decades. Wage indexation, in particular, was often blamed for the failure of stabilization and adjustment programmes. Examines the different components of an indexing system and assesses the degree of flexibility that the systems implemented in some countries brought to the labour market. While a particular indexing system may have the effect of reducing wage flexibility in certain periods, the analysis of data at the macro level shows that in the long term wage indexation has not been insurmountable obstacle. Stresses that wage determination is just one of the key processes with a substantial influence on inflation. In the case of high inflationary countries, the existence of various key prices draw attention to the need for co‐ordination in the adjustment of different prices during the application of a stabilization programme.

I. INTRODUCTION In this monograph we point out and analyse various dimensions of bargaining structure, which we define broadly as the institutional configuration within which bargaining takes place, and attempt to provide some guidelines for management action. We look at the development, theory, and present framework of bargaining structure in Britain and then examine it in terms of choices: multi‐employer versus single employer, company versus plant level bargaining, and the various public policy issues involved.

Using a unique three‐digit firm‐level data set of all medium‐ and large‐sized manufacturing enterprises in Bulgaria covering the years 1997/1998, and investigation is conducted into how wage determination is related to ownership status. Building on a slightly modified version of the right‐to‐manage model, the pooled OLS, panel and first‐difference TSLS estimates show statistically significant differences in the share of rents taken by workers employed in state, private domestic and foreign firms. Taking account of firm heterogeneity, it is found that rent sharing is nearly non‐existent in foreign‐owned firms, while the level of pay is higher compared with state‐owned companies. Further, rent sharing seems to be highly pronounced in state‐owned enterprises, while on average domestically private‐owned companies are characterised by less rent sharing. Overall, the robustness checks confirm these findings.

Wage reform is an important aspect of Chinese economic reform. The success of wage reform is likely to depend upon the following understanding: Neither use of the efficiency‐oriented market wage system nor use of the equity‐oriented planned wage system can solve the dual problem of economic growth and income distribution. A synergy of the two systems will therefore be needed. Such a synergetic wage system, which simultaneously solves the dual problem of production and distribution, can expedite the rise of social productivity – the fundamental mission in the preliminary stage of Chinese socialism. In other words, wages should be differentiated, and the differences should be related to workers′ effort and society′s demand for them. These differences, however, need not be very large.

The Saint Valentine's Decree (1984) and the ensuing hard‐fought referendum (1985), which reduced the automatisms of scala mobile, started a process of redefinition of wage fixing in Italy, which culminated with the final abolition of scala mobile (1992) and the approval of Protocollo d'intesa (1993). Since then, following new corporatist principles, a national system of centralised wage bargaining (concertazione) and so‐called “institutional indexation” have governed the determination of wages. Does incomes policy generate greater coordination in the process of wage formation? Does it cause greater co‐movement of wages, prices, labour productivity and unemployment? This paper aims to answer these questions with reference to one of the G8 economies.

After testing for unit root each component by using the ADF, Phillips and Perron, DF‐GLS and Zivot and Andrews statistics, the paper tests for co‐integration the so‐called WPYE model using different methods. The Engle and Granger approach is used to assess the impact of incomes policy on the speed of adjustment of real wages, productivity (and unemployment) to their equilibrium value, while the Gregory and Hansen procedure serves as a means to endogenously detect the presence of a regime shift. The paper estimates coefficients before and after the structural break.

Incomes policy based on the 1993 Protocol has caused a regime shift in the process of wage determination. The long‐run estimates of the WPYE model do not generate stationary residuals except when a dummy for 1993 is added. The share of wages over GDP reduces by about ten percentage points in the early 1990s and has stood at about 57 per cent since 1995. The link with productivity is close to one‐to‐one only before the break. The feedback mechanism, as measured by the coefficient of lagged residuals in short‐run estimates, is increased from −0.46 in the pre‐reform to −0.79 in the post‐reform period, suggesting that incomes policy has increased real wage flexibility indeed. In recent years the link between real wages and (very low) labour productivity growth has weakened. In a sense, incomes policy has introduced a new form of (upward) wage rigidity. Last but not least, incomes policy has changed the correlation with the unemployment rate from positive to not statistically significant.

Future developments will focus on disentangling the impact of incomes policy vis‐à‐vis other policy interventions on WPYE and on unemployment.

The analysis calls for a careful revision of the 1993 Protocol aimed at better protecting the purchasing power of real wages without losing control on inflation, and introducing growth‐generating mechanisms.

The paper studies the impact of incomes policy on WPYE and the Phillips curve by means of co‐integration and structural break analysis. It proposes to interpret the effect of incomes policy on the Phillips curve as changing the coefficient of the error correction mechanism that leads real wages to their long‐run equilibrium value.

One of the last functions the Commission on Industrial Relations performed before it was wound up towards the end of last year was to produce a report on wage determination in the retail distribution sector. Because of the CIR's dissolution, the report received remarkably little publicity. This was a pity, since it was the culmination of some two years' work, in consultation with representatives from over 50 employers' associations, several trade unions and other spokesmen from the industry. In addition it contains the results of a postal survey of over 2,500 retail establishments and an earnings survey of 13,500 employees — a great deal of original data. Ivor Williams worked for the CIR and took a prominent part in the preparation of the report. In this article he examines the structure and effectiveness of retail wages councils, and in particular the report's recommendation that a revised form of wages council should be retained.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role wage dispersion across establishments has played in recent increases in total wage inequality in Germany and compares it to inequality changes at the individual level. It is queried whether the contribution of establishment heterogeneity to the rise of wage inequality stems from changes of institutional settings or from structures such as establishment size and the composition of the workforce.

Applying regression-based decompositions of variance to German linked employer-employee panel data for the years 2000-2010 it is analysed to what extent changes associated to firm structures contribute to the rise of total wage inequality.

Results show that the rise in wage inequality in Germany to a great extent is associated to rising wage variance across establishments, implying that establishment specific wage premiums have grown. By further decomposing across firm components of wage inequality, it is found that changes in across establishment wage inequality related to collective bargaining, worker co-determination and internal labour markets together account for about 3 per cent of the rise in total inequality. Inequality changes related to establishments’ skill and occupational composition account for about 11 per cent and establishment size alone accounts for about 18 per cent of the rise in total inequality.

The main contribution is to quantify the relation of specific establishment characteristics to the rise in total wage inequality over time. Conclusions are drawn about the importance of mechanisms of rent sharing at the firm level in comparison to the determination of wages by individual qualification.