This volume presents, for the first time, a comprehensive analysis of national minimum wage systems in Europe and the USA. The study, coordinated by the Economic and Social Sciences Institute (WSI) in the Hans Böckler Foundation, contains studies of countries such as Great Britain, Ireland, the Benelux countries, France, Spain, the states of central and eastern Europe and the USA, all of which have minimum wage provisions. In other countries covered by the study - the Scandinavian countries, Denmark, Sweden and Norway as well as Germany, Austria and Switzerland - the provision of a minimum wage is achieved by and large by means of collective agreements. The volume concludes with a paper entitled 'Theses for a European minimum wage policy' which sets out concrete proposals for a European coordination of minimum wage policy.
