Merdikawati, NurinaAl Izzati, Ridho2025-02-132025-02-132025-02-13The World Bank Economic Review0258-6770https://hdl.handle.net/10986/42816This paper investigates whether the minimum wage policy significantly reduced poverty in Java Island, Indonesia, between 2002 and 2014. Its identification strategy exploits variation in minimum wages over time within pairs of geographically proximate districts. The study finds that the minimum wage has a distributional impact on wage workers just below the 20th percentile up to those in the middle of the wage distribution, with no overall loss of employment. However, the minimum wage policy has no distributional impact on per capita household expenditure and a limited effect on changes in poverty status.en-USCC BY 3.0 IGOMINIMUM WAGEPOVERTYJAVA ISLANDJournal ArticleWorld Bank10.1093/wber/lhae02210.1596/42816