Attila Lindner: Inequality in labour markets and the minimum wage

Following his Stone Centre breakfast presentation, we spoke with UCL Professor of Economics and Co-Director of the IFS-CPP Attila Lindner about his research on inequality and the minimum wage.

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Hi Attila, thanks for taking the time to speak with us. Please tell us a little about your background.

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I am a Professor of Economics at University College London and Co-Director of the IFS-CPP. I completed my PhD in Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, under the supervision of David Card and Emmanuel Saez. Before that, I earned a master’s degree in Economics from the Central European University, which was then based in Budapest. I completed my undergraduate studies at Corvinus University of Budapest, where I was also a member of Rajk College.
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What inspired you to pursue a PhD in economics?‍

I have always been fascinated by both science and society. In high school, I especially loved mathematics — I attended Árpád Gimnázium, which offered a specialised mathematics curriculum — but I was equally drawn to debates about society and philosophy. Since both of my parents are economists, choosing economics as a field came naturally. At the same time, during my first years at university, I was not yet sure whether research or academia was truly for me, nor did I see myself as a particularly talented scientist.

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A transformative experience came when I joined Rajk College, a special educational institution affiliated with Corvinus University. At Rajk, I not only met some of the brightest and most ambitious students at the university, but I also had the opportunity to interact with scholars who had graduated from top European and American universities. One particularly important influence was the late Gábor Kézdi, who had recently returned from the University of Michigan and introduced world-class econometrics and labour economics courses in Hungary. Through his teaching, I realised how powerful, disciplined, and rigorous economic tools can be in addressing first-order social and economic problems.

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Later, through the Rajk College Neumann Award, I had the chance to meet many leading economists, including Gary Becker, Matthew Rabin, Daron Acemoglu, Glenn Loury, and Kevin Murphy. Meeting such giants of the profession was deeply inspiring and ultimately motivated me to pursue a PhD at one of the best universities in the world.

What is your research about?

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My research focuses on understanding inequality in labour markets and the role that institutions play in shaping it. Inequality is an inherently complex phenomenon, and studying it requires not only rich data, but also very careful empirical analysis.

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One major strand of my work examines the effects of minimum wages on labour markets. This has been one of the central debates in economics for decades, because different models of the labour market lead to very different predictions. My research, together with various co-authors, has shown that contrary to the predictions of the traditional neoclassical model, increases in the minimum wage tend to raise wages significantly while generating little to no substantial employment loss. A key part of this research agenda has been to understand why labour markets behave differently from the textbook competitive model, and what this implies for public policy.

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Beyond minimum wages, I have also studied how firm-level technological change affects inequality, how unemployment insurance shapes job-search behavior, and how pension systems influence labour supply decisions. More recently, I received a European Research Council grant to study how different labour-market policies can support the creation of “good jobs” — jobs that provide not only adequate pay, but also stability, progression, and dignity for workers.

What challenges have you faced?

One of the biggest challenges in applied research is finding the right data. Sometimes the data already exists and is relatively accessible; other times, gaining access can be extremely burdensome, especially when working with sensitive administrative records. And even when access is initially granted, the conditions can change over time. In many ways, data access is the central challenge of empirical work: most other problems can eventually be solved, but without high-quality data it is very difficult to produce credible research.

Throughout most of my career, I have worked primarily with large administrative datasets. More recently, however, I have started collecting my own data. That brings a different set of challenges. Designing surveys and fieldwork is demanding in itself, but it is also substantially more expensive and requires securing the right funding. In that respect, the support of the Stone Centre has been incredibly important, as it reduced some of the financial uncertainty and allowed me to focus more fully on the research itself.

How was your experience presenting at the Stone Centre breakfast?‍

Presenting at the Stone Centre breakfast is a truly special experience. The environment is exceptionally supportive and genuinely open to new and unconventional ideas that may lie outside standard academic wisdom. That creates a unique space for presenting work that is more exploratory and ambitious, but also potentially more transformative.

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I found the discussions and questions to be remarkably forward-looking and intellectually generous. The Stone Centre is one of the rare places where rigorous critical thinking is combined with real openness to new ideas and a strong spirit of support and encouragement.

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Visit Attila's website here.