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CALGARY — Alberta seems set to implement Canada’s highest minimum wage, joining a social experiment taking root in jurisdictions across North America.

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The new NDP government plans to raise the wage to $15 per hour from $10.20 over three years — even more ambitious than Los Angeles’ recently approved plan to raise the wage to $15 by 2020. It’s hardly unique: Seattle’s $15 minimum wage went into effect in April.

Across the U.S., municipalities are heeding an increasing number of economic studies that suggest raising the wage will not create a wave of job losses. However, there are many caveats on that research and economists still question whether raising the wage will effectively combat poverty or income inequality.

With so many jurisdictions preparing to do it, economists may finally get a definitive answer.

“Economists are, if anything, quite interested and excited about some of these proposals. They’re creating a natural experiment for us to play with and we’re going to have a lot of studies over the next few years as places like L.A. and Seattle have minimum wages that are far larger than other similar jurisdictions,” said Mike Moffatt, an assistant professor at the Richard Ivey School of Business in London, Ont.. “It should give us a better idea about the effects that a lower or a higher minimum wage has.”