tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7464708.post6325738927842631314..comments2024-03-22T06:05:36.544-04:00Comments on Kids Prefer Cheese: O Minimum Wage, Thy Name is Discrimination!Mungowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02340064320347875601noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7464708.post-38424253466758194932009-11-05T00:07:28.467-05:002009-11-05T00:07:28.467-05:00This is a piece worth watching on the minimum wage...This is a piece worth watching on the minimum wage: http://blog.mises.org/archives/010334.asp<br />Finding cases of discrimination is one thing. Finding any positive results from these anti-discriminatory measures is much more difficult. Evidence seems to suggest they cause significantly more harm than good.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7464708.post-51653136425225344382009-11-04T18:16:39.928-05:002009-11-04T18:16:39.928-05:00bd,
i think you mean "Mungowitz's point m...bd,<br />i think you mean "Mungowitz's point <i>may</i> stand" since the absence of analytical leverage from an observed policy shock doesn't tell us whether a particular interpretation of a policy is valid, only that it's indeterminate.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7464708.post-32391449575125559452009-11-04T18:07:19.393-05:002009-11-04T18:07:19.393-05:00The PBW study presents evidence that firms in NYC ...The PBW study presents evidence that firms in NYC did in fact discriminate against African-Americans during a short observation window in 2004. It does not estimate any CHANGE in the extent of discrimination occurring after a CHANGE in the minimum wage, so Mungowitz's point stands unless it can be shown that the minimum wage in NYC was not binding in 2004.bdnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7464708.post-61633110584554124732009-11-04T17:39:59.731-05:002009-11-04T17:39:59.731-05:00it's interesting to see confirmation bias so s...it's interesting to see confirmation bias so strong that it takes contrary evidence as confirming.<br /><br />did you <b>read</b> the <a href="http://www.asanet.org/galleries/default-file/Oct09ASRFeature.pdf" rel="nofollow">complete article</a>? both pager and western are very familiar with the labor economics literature as is evident in their lit review. not only that, but the statistical discrimination hypothesis was one of the main things that motivated both this and an earlier study on the same lines, Pager ASR 2003. the central point is that employers have an expressed preference for white criminals over clean minorities, a pattern that is very hard to understand as rational behavior on the employer's part <i>even if the employers are forced by law to pay the same minimum wage to whomever they hire</i> since presumably the clean black fellow would be more productive for that wage than the white ex-con. your argument only makes any sense if you treat productivity as a step function (the position is filled or it ain't), but that's implausible because even if any worker would do the job equivalently bad workers might be more likely to steal, abandon w/o 14 days notice, or otherwise cause trouble.<br />furthermore, in other work, pager and quillian ASR 2005, the lead author argues that "taste" is a bad model for how discrimination works in present day America and cognitive biases ad implicit association is probably more accurate.<br /><br />card and krueger may be a fluke so you can still plausibly argue that abandoning the minimum wage would increase employment for low-skilled labor and this in turn would have a disproportionate benefit for the employment and labor force experience of black men. however even that's a conjecture and it's also a much weaker claim than the argument you're making that the minimum wage is the only relevant source of friction that allows employers to discriminate. you're not only making the strong claim but arguing that it's so obvious that three sociologists and a top journal are idiots for not embracing your speculation and running with it.<br /><br />btw, i may be a sociologist (and a princeton PhD at that) but i'm also a regular (and broadly sympathetic) reader of KPC and ex ante i was basically bought into the becker theory of discrimination but i was convinced otherwise by pager's field experiments.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7464708.post-88157397282877507632009-11-04T17:17:15.009-05:002009-11-04T17:17:15.009-05:00After a 4 years honours degree in econ I had never...After a 4 years honours degree in econ I had never heard about costs or benefits being shifted to other margins.<br /><br />I really enjoyed the podcast and have decided to write my final paper on the affects of the minimum wage in Australia.Domnoreply@blogger.com