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minimum wage

A collection of 9 issues

Minimum Wage, Maximum Discrimination

Note: This essay was originally published at the Institute for Faith and Freedom. Since the days of Adam Smith, economists have sought a set of social institutions which permit “neither dominion, nor discrimination,” to use Nobel Prize-winning economist James Buchanan’s phrase. In this, economists are joined by all people

Buchanan Broadside

The inverse relationship between quantity demanded and price is the core proposition in economic science, which embodies the presupposition that human choice behavior is sufficiently rational to allow predictions to be made. Just as no physicist would claim that “water runs uphill,” no self-respecting economist would claim that increases in

This Time Isn't Different

Note: This essay was originally published at my personal blog, A Fuller's Soap, and at The Independent Institute. William F. Buckley once defined a conservative as “Someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop.” With apologies to Buckley, we might define an economist as someone who stands athwart the

Five Ways Minimum Wage Studies Fail - Counterfactuals

The first post on the Mere Economics blog revisited a post I'd written over at the Independent Institute. Here's part 5. When do legislatures pass minimum wage increases? Most likely, not in the troughs of a depression. At least some politicians know that the minimum wage

Where are the Deals?

A version of this essay first appeared on my personal blog, A Fuller's Soap. Now You See it, Now You Don’t The classic "Coasean" way of thinking is to ask: 'Where are the deals?' Rarely does this way of thinking get applied to

Five Ways Minimum Wage Studies Fail - The Second Law of Demand

The first post on the Mere Economics blog revisited a post I'd written over at the Independent Institute. Here's part 4. On the flipside of anticipation, we ought also to think about the long-run—after a minimum wage hike becomes law. Not all adjustments must come

Five Ways Minimum Wage Studies Fail - Anticipation

The first post on the Mere Economics blog revisited a post I'd written over at the Independent Institute. Here's part 3. Entrepreneurs, to be successful, must be forward-looking. They’re in the business of anticipating future states of affairs and arranging production in the present based

Five Ways Minimum Wage Studies Fail - Underemployment

The first post on the Mere Economics blog revisited a post I'd written over at the Independent Institute. Here's part 2. Let’s stick with the margins of adjustment for a while longer. When we show a supply and demand diagram for a labor market in

Five Ways Minimum Wage Studies Fail - Margins of Adjustment

Here at the Mere Economics blog, Art Carden and myself plan to explore how "people expand their options by cooperating" - to borrow from our forthcoming book. To kick things off, I want to revisit something that impedes cooperation: the minimum wage. The following is a selection from