Abstract
This article provides a global overview of trends in low pay and policies for reducing its incidence. The special issue it introduces follows up on “Low-wage work in Europe and the United States” (Vol. 148 (2009), No. 4), the focus here being on Brazil, China, India, the Republic of Korea and South Africa. After examining the definition and estimation of low pay, the authors give particular attention to two policies accounting for variations in cross-country trends: collective bargaining and minimum wages. To address low pay effectively, they argue, minimum wages must be set within a certain range on account of threshold effects.