I think I have stumbled upon a way to teach comparative advantage to those otherwise predisposed not to understand it, or to simply reject it because their tribal affiliations suggest they are supposed to. The beautiful insights from the basic Ricardian setup lead one to conclude that while Wintercow is surely the least intelligent economist […]
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In my inbox today … I badly want to go argue for the “Pro” side: Hi _________: I am a librarian in the Business Division at the Central Library. We will be hosting a debate on Thursday, February 25th from 5-7pm on the $15 minimum wage issue. I am looking for one more person to […]
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In the latest paper on the impacts of minimum wage increases on the labor market opportunities for the targeted populations: (wait, before I post the findings, you can obviously dismiss them because I have an agenda, and second, I remind you again that even if the findings below showed the opposite, that says little about […]
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As a labor economist, I am very much excited any time we see a policy change that enables us to do some research into hitherto unanswered questions. The rolling-out of the new overtime pay rule would seem to be one such option. One reason the administration is pushing for the rule is akin to the reason for […]
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Sounds like a radical-contractarian to me! “With ______ , a business owner and the employees negotiate an agreement that works for them both. The agreement allows each party to prioritize what is important to them,” Hicks said in a statement. “This provision gives the parties the option, the freedom, to negotiate that agreement. And that is […]
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I’d simply like to see some consistency on when corporations are deemed to be greedy and when they are not. In today’s WaPo: Evidence that banks still deny black borrowers just as they did 50 years ago Well, I have no doubt that banks deny black borrowers. But the article title is to put it mildly, […]
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Robert Reich is telling us: Some opponents say minimum wage workers are teenagers, seeking some extra pocket money. WRONG! About half of minimum wage workers are 35 or older, most are women and many are key breadwinners for their families.” OK, well, let’s see what the government itself tells us from the raw data: ‘ […]
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Arnold Kling shares an email get received from the higher-ups at Swarthmore College: The managers of Swarthmore College agree that climate change is the most pressing issue of our time and that Swarthmore College can — and must — play a leadership role in helping to curb the seemingly insatiable appetite for fossil fuel. That’s my […]
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The latest on “food deserts” impacting nutritional disparities across class: “Though significant, spatial differences in access are small and explain only a fraction of the variation that we observe in the nutritional content of household purchases.” And try this, “we further find that the nutritional quality of purchases made by households with low levels of income and education […]
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We run this each year here at the Unbroken Window. I am really sure that this lesson is taught carefully and thoughfully throughout the academy. And I guess it’s some sort of capitalist conspiracy to print this story- we must have made it all up. I am asked from time to time by students if our […]
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