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外刊时文---Moderate Minimum Wages: more Good than Harm合理的最低工资标准：利大于弊 2014.5.2 | Moderate Minimum Wages: more Good than Harm合理的最低工资标准：利大于弊MINIMUM-WAGE laws have a long history and enduring political appeal. New Zealand pioneered the first national pay floor in 1894. America’s federal minimum wage dates from 1938. Most countries now have a statutory pay floor —and the ranks are still swelling. Even Germany, one of the few big countries without, may at last introduce a national one. And in an era of budget austerity and widening inequality, the political temptation to prop up wages at the bottom by laws may well grow.最低工资法有着悠久的历史并背负着持久的政治诉求。新西兰在1894年率先制定了第一个全国性的最低工资标准。美国联邦最低工资标准可以追溯到1938年。世界上大多数国家目前都有法定的最低工资标准——而且越来越多的国家正在加入到这一行列中来。即便是德国——几个为数不多没有制定此类法律的大国之一——有可能最终会引入国家最低工资标准。在一个预算紧缩和不平等现象日益扩大的时代，通过法令支持最低工资的政治诱惑可能会让各国越来越难以抗拒。(pay floor / wages at the bottom最低工资)Economists have tended to oppose minimum wages on the grounds thatthey reduce employment, hurting many of those they are supposed to help. Milton Friedman called them a form of discrimination against low-skilled workers. In standard models of competitive markets, anything that artificially raises the price of labor will curb demand for it, and the first to lose their jobs will be the least-skilled workers.一直以来, 经济学家往往对最低工资持反对态度，他们的理由是最低工资会减少就业机会，对那些本应该受到帮助的人产生不利影响。米尔顿?弗里德曼（Milton Friedman）将它们称之为是一种对低技能工人有形的歧视。在标准竞争市场模型中，任何人为地提高劳动力价格的因素都将抑制对劳动力的需求，而最先失业的将会是工作技能最低下的劳动者。Yet economic theory allows for the possibility that wage floors can boost both employment and pay. If employers have monopsony power as buyers of labor and are able to set wages, for instance, they can keep pay below its competitive rate. Academic supporters of wage floors, mainly economists on the left, appealed to this logic. But most of their colleagues disagreed; and until about 1990, most empirical studies found that higher minimum wages cost jobs, particularly among young workers.然而经济学理论中存在工资下限能够促进就业和提高雇主支付报酬水平的可能性。比如说，如果作为劳动力购