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Labor Market
A Category Archive (160 entries)
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November 7, 2009
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
If all goes well this link will take you to an article (with cool charts!) where I make an empirical case for telling the Recalculation story rather than pretending that we have the same economy that existed in the 1930's... MORE
November 5, 2009
Macroeconomics
Arnold Kling
Tyler Cowen repeats a tweet, and I will too. It comes from Masonomist Garett Jones. Workers mostly build organizational capital, not final output. This explains high productivity per 'worker' during recessions. This is yet another difference between the labor force... MORE
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
Alex Tabarrok highlights a post by David Beckworth on the sharp decline in nominal spending in 2008-2009. Alex writes, We could use some inflation to get back on track. Nominal wages are simply not flexible enough to get the job... MORE
October 14, 2009
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Many universities now have pay freezes or even nominal pay cuts. Under the circumstances, several professors have told me that there's little point in doing faculty evaluations. If there's zero - or negative - money for raises, why bother saying... MORE
October 5, 2009
Income Distribution
David Henderson
In his New York Times column this morning, Ross Douthat considers various ways of reducing income inequality. While not endorsing higher taxes on high-income people, Douthat's takes it as given that such taxes would reduce inequality. Ignore the fact that... MORE
September 24, 2009
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Robin's sounding strangely like a doom-sayer* lately:But as long as enough people are free to choose their fertility... then in the long run we should expect to see a substantial fraction of population with an heritable inclination to double their... MORE
September 17, 2009
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
The day my latest son was born, I quoted Julian Simon:One spring day about 1969 I visited the U.S. AID office on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., to discuss a project intended to lower fertility in less-developed countries. I arrived... MORE
September 8, 2009
Economics of Health Care
Arnold Kling
Michael Mandel writes, The employment report shows that private sector employment in August 2009 was lower than it was in August 1999 Of course, August of 1999 was near the peak of the dotcom boom, and August of 2009 is... MORE
September 7, 2009
Labor Market
David Henderson
The present recession has increased private-sector unemployment to over ten percent, and feckless attempts by government to ameliorate the recession have greatly expanded government employment. I predict that BLS data for 2009 will show government unions crossing the 50 percent... MORE
September 6, 2009
Labor Market
David Henderson
Casey Mulligan's blog is a gold mine. My two highlights are his two latest blogs. First, he points out that, according to the household employment data, seasonally adjusted employment last month fell by about 400,000. He attributes some of this... MORE
August 21, 2009
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
One of the most striking things about Denmark and Sweden: Almost everyone is overqualified for his job. The guy who sells train tickets doesn't just punch buttons and collect cash; he knows his regional transit network like the back of... MORE
August 10, 2009
Macroeconomics
Arnold Kling
It is here. This is a very difficult thing for me to do, because economic forecasting is done under the hydraulic paradigm that I think we should try to abandon. Anyway, a sample: Traditionally, fiscal stimulus would increase the demand... MORE
August 6, 2009
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
The McKinsey Global Institute writes, 71 percent of U.S. workers are in jobs for which there has been a decrease in demand from employers, an increase in supply of eligible workers, or both. I gather that this was as of... MORE
July 25, 2009
Labor Market
David Henderson
In response to yesterday's post about the minimum wage, Bruce Bartlett mentioned an episode of Seinfeld. That, plus the comment after Bruce's, made me think of a different Seinfeld episode. One of the major points I made in yesterday's post... MORE
July 24, 2009
Labor Market
David Henderson
In my 2001 book, The Joy of Freedom: An Economist's Odyssey, I told of how unions have pushed for minimum wage laws to hamper low-wage competition (traditionally much of that competition came from black workers) and how some firms have... MORE
July 17, 2009
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
I recently pointed out that back in the good old days, Krugman would have graciously granted that a payroll tax hike is an especially bad idea when unemployment is high. In response, Kevin Drum notes that the tax hike doesn't... MORE
July 16, 2009
Regulation
David Henderson
In the latest issue of Regulation, my review [.pdf] of Jeff Madrick's The Case for Big Government appears. One of my favorite grafs: If economic freedom works, he argues, our economy should be doing very well because we have had... MORE
July 15, 2009
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
The Krugman we've got is sold on the House health bill. But the Krugman we had, the thoughtful economist who wrote The Accidental Theorist, would have responded differently. Krugman Past, unlike Krugman Present, would have pointed out that when the... MORE
July 12, 2009
Economics and Culture
David Henderson
In a widely cited column last week, New York Times columnist David Brooks put capitalism as the first cause of the lack of dignity in modern American society. He wrote: First, there is capitalism. We are all encouraged to become... MORE
June 27, 2009
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
Definitely worth reading, with a variety of topics covered. On one topic, he says It's difficult to look at, for example, the very low unemployment rates we saw in the early 2000s and say that represented an economy in which... MORE
June 24, 2009
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Not long after I started at GMU, Tyler approximately remarked that, "Bill Gates is just crazy - he works like a dog despite his billions." I don't remember how I responded at the time. But when I'm trying to understand... MORE
June 18, 2009
Labor Market
David Henderson
Tyler Cowen quotes the following paragraph from an interview with Paul Samuelson: Milton Friedman. Friedman had a solid MV = PQ doctrine from which he deviated very little all his life. By the way, he's about as smart a guy... MORE
June 12, 2009
Labor Market
David Henderson
Early in the Great Depression, President Herbert Hoover made things worse by persuading big businessmen to keep wages high. At those high wages, employers wanted to employ fewer people than otherwise. We are about to suffer another small dose of... MORE
June 6, 2009
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Several economists I know say that labor markets have gotten more flexible in recent years. But are nominal pay cuts really happening to any significant degree? The only evidence that's come across my desk is from this piece, which claims... MORE
May 28, 2009
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
I'm pleased to report that noted blogger John Quiggin has accepted a slightly revised version of my proposed bet on European unemployment. The only revision: I sweetened the point spread to 1.5 percentage-points. Average European unemployment must be at least... MORE
May 26, 2009
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Unlike the authors of the CEPR report, John Quiggin at Crooked Timber is willing to make me a bet about European vs. American unemployment. However, he wants to adjust for incarceration rates:I'm willing to take Bryan on, with one amendment.... MORE
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
When I see an abstract like this, the article goes straight to the top of my queue:The ability of personality traits to predict important life outcomes has traditionally been questioned because of the putative small effects of personality. In this... MORE
May 21, 2009
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
I'm going to offer the following bet to the authors of the CEPR report:The average European unemployment rate for 2009-2018 (i.e., the next decade) will be at least 1% higher than U.S. unemployment rate. The bet will be resolved when... MORE
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
"U.S. Unemployment Rate Now as High as Europe," gloats a new issue brief from the Center for Economic and Policy Research. The subtext: Europe's heavy labor market regulation isn't so bad after all. In fact, since the "case for the... MORE
May 20, 2009
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
After reading Walter Block's excellent defense of economic freedom indices, I made a wish that he would spend "more time doing creative empirical work, and a lot less defending Austrian economic theory against all challengers." Thanks to David Henderson, I... MORE
May 14, 2009
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
In the latest Econ Journal Watch, Stephenson and Wendt point out that virtually all labor econ textbooks ignore occupational licensing despite its empirical importance. In particular, they show that licensing matters a lot more in the U.S. than the minimum... MORE
May 11, 2009
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
I just came across a fun paper that asks "Is the Tendency to Engage in Self-employment Genetic?" (Management Science 2008). As usual, the answer is yes. Based on a sample of over 3000 British twins, the authors estimate that 48%... MORE
Labor Market
David Henderson
The discussion of the misnamed Employee Freedom of Choice Act is taking place at the local level as well as nationally. In our local newspaper, Chris Fitz wrote a pro-EFCA letter to which I responded. My response is below: "Let's... MORE
May 7, 2009
Labor Market
David Henderson
Gerald W. Scully, a first-rate economist, has died of pancreatic cancer. Jerry authored the article on sports in The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. Although I chose him as the author and edited his piece, I never met Jerry. But economist... MORE
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
At CNN Money, Tyler explains how knowledge of behaviorial labor econ can save your job:Employers looking to cut personnel costs can either lay people off or lower their wages. Though there are exceptions, employers are generally more willing to do... MORE
April 24, 2009
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
If you've ever played around with wage or income data, you've probably noticed that married men make a lot more money than every other combo of gender and status. If your econometric model allows marriage to affect men's and women's... MORE
April 14, 2009
Austrian Economics
Arnold Kling
A quarter century ago, by a pre-white-haired John O'Sullivan, for The Foundation for Economic Education. Very rewarding to listen. For example, a bit over an hour into it, he makes the point that unions that force up wages in one... MORE
March 23, 2009
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
Abraham, et al on the differences between the household survey and the establishment survey of employment. And Glaeser and Gottlieb on the aggolomeration economies of cities. I have not found free online versions of either paper, though.... MORE
March 2, 2009
Labor Market
David Henderson
Just up on Forbes.com is an article by me on tomorrow's meeting between President Obama and Prime Minister Brown. It's titled, "Will Obama and Gordon Brown Cook Up a Tax Cartel?" In it, I talk about what they, as good... MORE
February 12, 2009
Labor Market
David Henderson
In a recent post, I said that whatever other mistakes Obama was making, at least he was repeating only 1 of 4 mistakes that Hoover/FDR (I think I'll start calling them Herbert Delano Roosevelt) made. Commenters pointed out correctly that... MORE
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
My favorite subplot in Brink Lindsey's "Nostalgianomics" is his tale of the decline of American unionization rates. He begins by ridiculing people who blame the change on virtually non-existent policy changes:Scrounging about for a policy explanation for declining unionization, Levy... MORE
January 22, 2009
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
More than one economist has told me that nominal wage rigidity is getting weaker during this recession. Now some journalists are saying the same thing (HT: Jacob Oost):More squeezed employers, though, are seeking an alternative to layoffs. They're turning to... MORE
January 16, 2009
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Very well-put:Unfortunately, not all prices are flexible; wages especially are not. This is not primarily because of union or other employment contracts. Few private-sector employers in the United States are unionized and as a result few workers (other than federal... MORE
January 1, 2009
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Here's a typically inane FDR quote:No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.Taken literally, Roosevelt's norm is superfluous: If you don't pay your workers enough... MORE
December 5, 2008
Labor Market
David Henderson
On CNBC this morning, the talking heads pitched the new job loss figures in the most negative way. They focused on the fact that the 533,000 jobs lost (according to payroll data) were the highest in years, but they compared... MORE
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
Bloomberg reports, Factory payrolls fell 85,000 after decreasing 104,000 in October. The return of 27,000 striking machinists at Boeing Co. last month helped limit the drop, economists said... Payrolls at builders dropped 82,000 after decreasing 64,000. Financial firms decreased payrolls... MORE
November 24, 2008
Labor Market
David Henderson
On today's Forbes.com, I have a piece titled, "Has Bush Heard of Bastiat?" Forbes chose the title, but I think it's a good one. And I'm willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that Bush hasn't heard of Bastiat. I wouldn't... MORE
November 12, 2008
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
The main theme of this lecture is economic policy and labor market adjustment. My conjecture is that in our post-industrial economy, conventional Keynesian policies do not operate as they do in an industrial economy. Another issue is that the natural... MORE
November 11, 2008
Macroeconomics
Arnold Kling
So far, I have focused on unemployment as a problem of adjustment. In this essay, I review the history of the Dotcom recession, and I focus on the index of aggregate hours worked as an indicator of macroeconomic performance. According... MORE
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
This lecture covers an important issue: why do firms adjust by cutting workers rather than by cutting wages?... MORE
November 10, 2008
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
In this lecture, I get to the punch line and offer my explanation of unemployment. Markets are constantly in adjustment, with the number of people in different occupations changing. Usually, the task of adjustment and adaptation goes remarkably smoothly. Occasionally,... MORE
November 9, 2008
Macroeconomics
Arnold Kling
I continue to focus on the issue of unemployment. In this lecture, I want to emphasize two things. One is the problems with popular intuition that jobs are scarce. The other is the wide variety of jobs, and hence labor... MORE
November 8, 2008
Macroeconomics
Arnold Kling
These lectures will cover macroeconomics as I think it should be taught, not the way it is normally taught. The focus is not on model-building. The focus is on the two most troubling questions in macro. 1.How is it that... MORE
November 4, 2008
Labor Market
David Henderson
Under current law, workers, to be represented, must vote in a secret ballot. The EFCA would give unions another way to monopolize a workplace: get a majority of workers to sign a card authorizing a union to represent them. This... MORE
June 16, 2008
Microeconomics
Arnold Kling
Ezra Klein writes, It's an article of faith for some on the right that unions wreck productivity. Not in the private sector. I would be surprised if you had lower productivity in unionized firms. You can't have both lower productivity... MORE
June 10, 2008
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
One of Robert Lucas' most notable insights is that human capital (unlike, say, oil) moves from where it is scarce to where it is plentiful. (I thought Lucas had a very quotable line to this effect, but it doesn't seem... MORE
June 4, 2008
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Jeff Miron has a whole op-ed on the wonders of the undergraduate econ major. But I think I can put the case for the econ major more succinctly. Here goes: Econ is the highest-paid of all the easy majors. My... MORE
May 26, 2008
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
From the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly:[S]ome producers fear that a strike is inevitable - especially since an estimated 80 percent of SAG members are unemployed and thus have nothing to lose by walking out.This is a cute quip, but... MORE
May 5, 2008
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
The latest issue of Dan Klein's Econ Journal Watch is out, featuring a brainy symposium on gender balance in the economics profession. (For my general view, see this). I particularly liked psychologist John Johnson's contribution. Highlights:The dominant model of vocational... MORE
April 17, 2008
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Well, it doesn't apply to me, but it's still great advice:One piece of advice for young women. Do a whole lot of planning early on. Be as strategic about your personal life as you are about your career. And find... MORE
March 9, 2008
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
I had a shockingly large turnout for my talk at SXSW Interactive in Austin. But the real surprise came during the book signing. I was seated next to Timothy Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek, and got a glimpse of... MORE
February 20, 2008
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
After blogging some simple regressions showing that, contra Harford, blacks actually have an unusually high return to education, I emailed my friend, and noted labor economist, Gordon Dahl, for further background. He gave me permission to reprint the following:Neal and... MORE
February 18, 2008
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
In my critique of Harford's chapter on statistical discrimination, I wrote:But is it really true that the market fails to reward blacks for getting more education? Is it even true that the market rewards them less? I tested these claims... MORE
February 16, 2008
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
There seems to be a lot of demand for me to blog some of my Harford-related regressions on black versus white returns to education. I'll try to satisfy this demand early next week. For now, though, I want to complain... MORE
February 14, 2008
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
February 13, 2008
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
I'm a fan of Tim Harford's Logic of Life, and I'm a big promoter of the explanatory power of statistical discrimination (see here, here, and here for starters; also check out my lecture notes). So naturally I'm thrilled that Tim's... MORE
February 5, 2008
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Fun facts from Kip Viscusi's article on "Job Safety" in David Henderson's encyclopedia: Annual OSHA penalties for safety violations (2002): $149,000,000 Annual Workers Compensation Premiums (2001): $26,000,000,000 Estimated Annual Wage Premiums for Risky Activities (2004 dollars): $245,000,000,000 His point: Market... MORE
January 12, 2008
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
As I've argued before, the best way to fight negative stereotypes is for people unfairly subject to the negative stereotype to use in-group peer pressure to raise the bar. In short: "Stop making me look bad!" Over at Agoraphilia, Glen... MORE
January 10, 2008
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
What is a standard estimate for the wage-elasticity of labor demand? Anyone?... MORE
December 3, 2007
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Most people would like to be described as "straight shooters." (I think). And many straight shooters are very successful. However, it seems like they also face a glass ceiling. Whether we're talking politics, business, or non-profits, we rarely see straight... MORE
November 7, 2007
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
More than one attendee at the Social Philosophy and Policy conference voiced dismay over David Horowitz's promotion of the Academic Bill of Rights. A typical plank:Curricula and reading lists in the humanities and social sciences should reflect the uncertainty and... MORE
October 20, 2007
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Profit-maximizing employers should be gender-blind, right? Well, not quite. If, given all other information, women are less profitable to employ at a given wage than men, then profit-maximizing employers can't afford be gender-blind. That's the great lesson of the theory... MORE
October 19, 2007
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Shrewd labor economics from the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly:For an actor, speaking out about contract demands may seem like a smart PR or legal move, but the strategy can often backfire in Hollywood when it comes to landing the... MORE
October 11, 2007
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Alex Tabarrok doubts there's much discrimination against right-wing academics; I beg to differ. Now I'm getting some support from a surprising source: Though he's still making up his mind, Larry Summers is moving from a Tabarrokian starting point to a... MORE
October 5, 2007
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
After this morning's lecture on the life cycle model, I explained to my students that I'm never going to retire. Why would I give up a decent fraction of my income and most of my social network, when a professor's... MORE
September 21, 2007
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
Robert Shimer writes, Using United States data from 1948 to 2004, I find that there are substantial fluctuations in unemployed workers’ job finding probability at business cycle frequencies, while employed workers’ separation probability is comparative acyclic. This is particularly true... MORE
September 7, 2007
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
While the media focus on job creation--a classic case of make-work bias, I remain focused on the five-year average gain in productivity. Based on the revised second quarter figures, this five-year gain was at an average annual rate of 2.4... MORE
May 15, 2007
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
For those, like my co-blogger, who are interested in the issue of labor market discrimination, I again recommend Kevin Lang's new book, Poverty and Discrimination. On p. 314, Lang writes, if there is discrimination in the labor market, it is... MORE
May 14, 2007
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Herrnstein and Murray's (HM) The Bell Curve famously reported that, controlling for cognitive ability, most or all of the black-white earnings gap disappears. An interesting chapter in Intelligence, Genes, and Success: Scientists Respond to The Bell Curve challenges this result... MORE
February 7, 2007
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Have sexual harassment laws (and their stricter enforcement) noticeably reduced the probability of co-workers marrying? Have they noticeably reduced the probability of people getting married at all? If the workplace is one of the main places where people meet, it's... MORE
January 25, 2007
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Economists who support the minimum wage realize that it is - at best - a small transfer. Why do they keep focusing on it? A common answer: The minimum wage has symbolic value. Here are two of Klein's respondents: A... MORE
January 24, 2007
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
I second Arnold's recommendation of the Klein-Dompe piece. Dan Klein is probably the greatest intellectual entrepreneur I know. Who else would see a petition to raise the minimum wage and think "Wow, what an opportunity to write a fascinating article"?... MORE
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
Daniel B. Klein and Stewart Dompe want to know why some economists favor raising the minimum wage. Here is one example: Arindrajit Dube: Increased income (and reduced inequality) has broad effects throughout society and polity; this includes (but is not... MORE
January 13, 2007
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Suppose most economists believe that "Libertarian economists can't do math," and that, on average, they are correct. How does this affect libertarian economists' incentive to learn math? You could say that this stereotype will be self-fulfilling. If everyone assumes that... MORE
January 6, 2007
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
If this doesn't make you laugh out loud, what will?... MORE
December 24, 2006
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
For me, one of the funnest parts of teaching undergraduate labor is when I lecture on why "the standard history of labor is wrong." I begin with a quick summary of what I take the standard view to be: Most... MORE
December 16, 2006
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Here's the true story of Jane Galt, exploited PIRG employee who finally attained class consciousness. By way of contrast, every libertarian organization I ever gophered for treated me like family. I did however occasionally work extra hours off the books... MORE
December 5, 2006
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
I did the first podcast of my career on Friday - a chat with Russ Roberts about discrimination... which somehow morphed into my spiel about the relative wretchedness of the European standard of living. Overall, I had a swell time,... MORE
November 27, 2006
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
When men's incomes go up, everyone expects the demand for wives to go up as well. If average male income rises, men have to offer women a piece (maybe a large piece) of the increase if they want to attract... MORE
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
He writes, Controversy remains in the United States (and elsewhere) over the effects of the minimum wage mainly because past changes in the U.S. minimum wage have usually been too small to have large and easily detectable general effects on... MORE
November 22, 2006
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
Bryan discusses a blog post by Gary Becker on polygamy. Randall Parker sent an email pointing to a response by Steve Sailer (I cannot figure out a permalink, you may have to search for it). Monogamy is a cartel formed... MORE
November 20, 2006
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
I lectured on polygamy this morning; then, by pure coincidence, I came across Gary Becker's latest word on the subject. Highlight: Some oppose polygyny because they believe too many women would be "swept off their feet" by smooth-talking actual or... MORE
October 17, 2006
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
The prize for Phelps left me cold - until I learned that he said this: One can hardly imagine, I think, how poor we would be today were it not for the rapid population growth of the past to which... MORE
October 6, 2006
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
Russ Roberts notices the really big news about employment. Here's the last paragraph: The good news was that job gains for both July and August turned out to bigger than previously estimated, taking some of the bite out of September's... MORE
September 22, 2006
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Once one of my wife's law professors polled her class on birth order. "How many of you are first-borns?" Two-thirds of the students raised their hands. Clear evidence that first-borns are achievers, right? Hardly. An alternative hypothesis is that law... MORE
September 6, 2006
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
In the latest Journal of Economic Perspectives, Steven J. Davis, R. Jason Faberman, and John Haltiwanger write, More than ten percent of U.S. workers separate from their employers each quarter. Some move directly to a new job with a different... MORE
July 24, 2006
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Last week, when Econlog readers had the good luck to get Eric Crampton as a guest blogger, I had the good luck to find myself at Comic-Con, the world's largest comic book convention. I must not be quite the nerd... MORE
July 15, 2006
Labor Market
Eric Crampton
Tyler provides further evidence that there are serious problems in French labour markets... A clerk will spend half an hour "helping" a customer. I wait and wait. (It is worse than the Falls Church Public Library.) I do not understand... MORE
July 13, 2006
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Tyler is once again handing out career advice to potential Ph.D. students in economics. I stand by my previous claim (here and here) that he makes some good points, but is far too negative. Where does Tyler go wrong? His... MORE
June 24, 2006
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Don Boudreaux has come up with the first new way to explain the folly of the minimum wage I've read in years: Allow me here to spin the core argument -- that minimum-wage legislation prices many low-skilled workers out of... MORE
June 23, 2006
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Ken Arrow scoffs at charges of academic discrimination against non-liberals: It’s hard for me to judge, of course, but I must say that my department contains a number of Republicans. And they were appointed by a democratic group, whose members... MORE
June 14, 2006
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Arnold writes: My guess is that someone with a high IQ in an adverse cultural setting will not necessarily be healthy and wealthy. Someone with an average IQ in an achievement-oriented cultural setting will tend to achieve a lot. Both... MORE
June 9, 2006
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
I believe that IQ matters quite a lot for earnings, and that a lot of education is mere signaling. But I've recently reached an epiphany about the relationship between these two heresies. Note that the two heresies are distinct. You... MORE
May 24, 2006
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Greg Mankiw once again proves the value of outsourcing by compiling a ton of good career advice. A must-read for grad students!... MORE
May 17, 2006
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Here's a paper that reminds me why I should be very grateful to be at George Mason's Econ Department: While in the 1970s it was difficult for less prestigious universities to compete on an equal footing with top institutions, which... MORE
May 7, 2006
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
I just watched the excellent Assassination of Richard Nixon. Sam Bicke, the bungling wannabe assassin played by Sean Penn, has a bunch of gripes against the world. But first and foremost, he wants a job where he'll never have to... MORE
April 11, 2006
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
Maybe the best take on the French labor strike comes from Charles Krauthammer. Yes, the old should be protected from precariousness because they are exhausted; the sick, because they are too weak. But privileged students under the age of 26?... MORE
March 12, 2006
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Arnold writes: I think that policies like the minimum wage or the laws to force Wal-Mart to pay more in health care benefits are issues where the economic impact is small relative to the emotional activation. People on the left... MORE
March 8, 2006
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Apparently Hollywood is reading Econlog. Last September, I praised the underlying economics of Crash. Now it's won Best Picture. I sure didn't see that coming!... MORE
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
I suspect that Larry Summers would still be president of Harvard if he hadn't shared his thoughts on gender imbalance in the sciences. Patri Friedman now advances the theory that men dominate in the sciences because their priorities are so... MORE
February 21, 2006
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
was pretty uninspired. In the middle of a four-minute segment on the public's fears about jobs, I get about 15 seconds to talk about "make-work bias," which is the term my co-blogger uses for the public's fear about processes that... MORE
January 8, 2006
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
The L.A. Times has a big expose about the union founded by Cesar Chavez: Today, a Times investigation has found, Chavez's heirs run a web of tax-exempt organizations that exploit his legacy and invoke the harsh lives of farmworkers to... MORE
December 17, 2005
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
According to George Reisman, Paul Krugman is now accusing Wal-Mart of destroying jobs. Krugman notes that Walmart’s competition against other retailers also destroys the jobs its competitors had offered before being put out of business by its competition. He attempts... MORE
November 10, 2005
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun wisely tells us: "Every Hun has value even if only to serve as a bad example." In this spirit, a coven of grad students has produced videos of nine really bad interviews to illustrate... MORE
October 15, 2005
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
While your earning a Ph.D. in economics, you learn two big lessons: 1. There's no such thing as a free lunch. 2. You are in serious pain. On reflection, though, I've decided that both of these lessons fall short of... MORE
October 7, 2005
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Andrew Gelman links to a tantalizing summary of Warren Farrell's Why Men Earn More. As best as I can tell, Farrell's got 25 new control variables to add to the standard wage regressions. He... claims to have identified twenty-five tradeoffs... MORE
October 3, 2005
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Unlike referees for academic journals, the blogosphere produces a lot constructive and thought-provoking criticism. Check out Biopolitical and Tyler Cowen's responses to my recent post on IQ. Biopolitical immediately brought up an issue worth elaborating on: I can see no... MORE
October 1, 2005
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Lots of people loathe IQ research. But even people who are open-minded about IQ often puckishly say "So what?" It doesn't really matter if the IQ is the main determinant of earnings, or economic growth, or anything else. All that... MORE
September 6, 2005
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
John Ray has an interesting post on the effect of labor market regulations on Swedish women. The most striking finding he reports is that 75% of women in Sweden work in the public sector, compared to 25% of men: Swedish... MORE
July 2, 2005
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Most people care a lot more about money than I do, but even so, almost no one wants to be married for their money. It's puzzling. You might say that since marriage is a long-term contract, people only want to... MORE
June 29, 2005
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
In a comment on the preceding post, Andrew Whitacre, who wrote the original rant, speculates, There are too many smart people for too few smarts-required jobs, just like there've never been enough English professorships for all the English majors who... MORE
June 28, 2005
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
Michael Mandel points to a blog post that claims we will face a severe nursing shortage. As usual, there is a government study supporting such a claim. In Learning Economics, I derided the notion of a labor shortage (in this... MORE
June 22, 2005
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Graduate students would do well to heed Tyler Cowen's career advice. His council definitely helped me during my early years as an assistant professor. You could even call me his protege. But then and now I think his advice tends... MORE
May 19, 2005
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
David Card has a new study arguing that immigration has basically no effect on the wages of domestic low-skilled workers. This confirms his earlier results on the famed Mariel boatlift, when Castro freed 125,000 Cubans to flee to Miami. Is... MORE
May 4, 2005
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
Alberto Alesina, Edward Glaeser, and Bruce Sacerdote write, we show, in an accounting sense, that legally mandated holidays can explain 80 percent of the difference in weeks worked between the U.S. and Europe and 30 percent of the difference in... MORE
April 23, 2005
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
A new study finds that academia discriminates against right-wingers. Alex Tabarrok wishes it were true, but isn't buying it: I must admit that for a moment I enjoyed basking in my own victim hood. My failings are not my own... MORE
April 1, 2005
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
When people compare the U.S. and Europe, they often conclude that the U.S. is richer and more economically efficient, but that Europe is happier because they don't measure everything in dollars and cents (or even Marks and Pfennings). One of... MORE
March 20, 2005
Macroeconomics
Arnold Kling
Robert Hall writes Unemployment rises not because of a bulge of layoffs but because workers entering job search—from previous jobs, from school, and from home activities—experience unusual difficulty in finding jobs. Among other things, this means that stories on layoffs,... MORE
March 19, 2005
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
What was Hitler's argument for attacking other countries? You might think he didn't have one, but he did. His argument is frankly Malthusian: Our population is growing, and we will run out of food unless we get more land. (My... MORE
March 11, 2005
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
Sin City opens on April 1, I haven't been as enthuiastic about a movie trailer since The Return of the King. And it's got a cool backstory too. Director Robert Rodriguez dropped out of the Directors Guild of America (DGA)... MORE
February 20, 2005
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
In a classic episode of Seinfeld, George Costanza realized that his instincts were fundamentally wrong, and vowed to "do the opposite": George: Elaine, bald men, with no jobs, and no money, who live with their parents, don't approach strange women.... MORE
January 27, 2005
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
Jane Galt asks, Why hasn't labour successfully colonised the non-manufacturing world, outside of the public sector? I think that the answer might start with Gary Becker's distinction between specific human capital and generic human capital. Specific human capital is capital... MORE
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
My colleague Robin Hanson has schooled me in the ABCs of the Men's Rights Movement. Bottom line: There are a lot of things that a lot of men could reasonably complain about, but don't, because they would be greeted with... MORE
January 17, 2005
Labor Market
Bryan Caplan
This is the season for giving movies their just deserts, but as far as I know there isn't a prize for Most Economically Literate Movie. Until now. The First Annual Prize in this category goes too... A Day Without a... MORE
October 7, 2004
International Trade
Arnold Kling
I attended most of this Cato Institute Conference on trade, outsourcing, and the labor market. A few notes: Federal Reserve Board Vice-Chairman Roger Ferguson's opening speech was outstanding. I commend it to anyone who teaches undergraduate economics as a useful... MORE
September 20, 2004
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
Bruce Nussbaum of Business Week writes, the surge in companies going to India, China, and Eastern Europe in search of very cheap brainpower may soon be coming to an end -- far sooner than anyone has anticipated. Why? Simply put,... MORE
September 9, 2004
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
Tyler Cowen lists ten possible explanations for the weak labor market in this recovery. He concludes But I would sooner call the whole thing a continuing mystery. Note that most of these hypotheses imply that the economy can still become... MORE
September 6, 2004
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
This post by Ben Muse shows the potential for mischief in talking about declining wages. He cites an article by Michael Pakko and quotes Pakko as saying, Having reached a peak of 58 percent in 1970, wages and salaries have... MORE
September 4, 2004
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
Asymmetrical Information links to Random Jottings, who quotes an anonymous economist on the possibility that the payroll employment survey double-counts jobs whenever the labor market gets so tight that workers take new jobs before their old employers can even update... MORE
August 24, 2004
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
Julian Sanchez picked up from Gene Healy a Times of India story with a new twist on outsourcing. Says a programmer on Slashdot.org who outsourced his job: "About a year ago I hired a developer in India to do my... MORE
August 19, 2004
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
Two pieces in the New York Times discuss the labor market. Alan Krueger talks about the issue of defining a "good job." Neoclassical economics hardly recognizes a distinction between good jobs and bad ones. All workers are supposed to be... MORE
July 23, 2004
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
Frank Levy and Richard J. Murnane predict that computer automation is leading to a split in the labor market. Good jobs will increasingly require expert thinking and complex communication. Jobs that do not require these tasks will not pay a... MORE
July 12, 2004
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
The OECD looks at total hours worked in its member countries. The performance of US labour markets also looks quite strong when assessed in terms of hours worked per capita, a more comprehensive measure of “labour utilisation” than the employment... MORE
June 24, 2004
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
Glen Whitman writes, The minimum-wage advocates who have thought much about it (of course, many haven't) usually have in mind some kind of monopsony model - that is, they assume a market in which employers have some degree of monopoly... MORE
May 26, 2004
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
Bruce Bartlett pointed to a Dallas Fed analysis of the causes and consequences of higher productivity. One of the sections, on the evolution of work, says The United States will continue to move up the hierarchy of human talents as... MORE
April 2, 2004
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
In my favorite musical, The Music Man, there is climactic scene in which the mayor calls for Professor Harold Hill to be tarred and feathered. "Where's the band?" the mayor shouts rhetorically. "Where's the Band?" Whereupon the boys in the... MORE
March 22, 2004
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
The grocery workers in the Washington DC area are thinking about going on strike. The president of the union representing 18,000 Washington area Giant Food and Safeway Inc. employees believes "there is a serious possibility" that upcoming contract negotiations will... MORE
March 14, 2004
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
The divergence between the payroll survey and the household survey of employment has been a big issue over the past year. The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently offered its analysis. The whole article is worth reading. Here are a few... MORE
March 9, 2004
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
Robert Barro tosses in his $.02 about the divergence between payroll and household employment growth: since the peak of payroll employment in March 2001, household employment has risen by 700,000, while payroll has fallen by 2.4 million, so that household... MORE
March 7, 2004
Fiscal Policy
Arnold Kling
Noam Scheiber argues that the Bush tax cuts in fact were stimulative. Liberals in Congress and at places like the Economic Policy Institute complain that the Bushies should have targeted the bulk of their tax cuts toward the working poor... MORE
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
Tim Kane has written a timely paper on the behavior of the payroll survey, which is the source of data showing disappointing employment numbers. The key point is this: The payroll survey double-counts any individual who changes jobs during the... MORE
March 4, 2004
Social Security
Arnold Kling
In this essay, I argue that Congress treats economists the way the Inquisition treated heretics. Why do the Inquisitors have it in for economists? Ultimately, politicians tell the people what we want to hear. They think that we want to... MORE
February 25, 2004
International Trade
Arnold Kling
Russell Roberts speculates on what might happen if Indian outsourcing really gets out of hand. suppose Indians decided to work for free and give away the software, the ultimate competitive threat. If outsourcing work to low-wage Indians is bad, surely... MORE
February 24, 2004
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
Stuart Anderson looks at the arithmetic of Indiana's effort to save jobs from outsourcing. Out of 65 contract employees, Tata would have employed a number of Hoosiers through an Indiana-based subcontractor, but would also have used Indians currently employed by... MORE
February 22, 2004
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
Virginia Postrel thinks that the Bureau of Labor Statistics may be under-estimating employment. the bureau has missed more than 300,000 manicurists. It puts the total at around 30,000, compared with the count of 372,000 -- up from 189,000 a decade... MORE
February 8, 2004
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
Caitlin Flanagan's cover story (as of this writing, not yet on line) for the March issue of The Atlantic Monthly is on the crucial role played by female immigrant workers in the "have-it-all" lifestyle of professional women with children. one... MORE
February 4, 2004
Social Security
Arnold Kling
I have a new essay that argues that we over-estimate the value of collective benefits. Contrary to my training as an economist, I believe that at least some of the preference that workers have for in-kind benefits reflects flat-out irrationality.... MORE
February 1, 2004
International Trade
Arnold Kling
An engineer from India emails me, The purchasing power parity in India is 5 compared to USA - a 20000 $ programmer in India is actually making 100,000 $ in terms of his spending power. ...an average programmer in India... MORE
January 11, 2004
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
In my essay, I made an off-hand comment. If the households and businesses that hire illegal immigrants do so in order to save the cost of paying taxes, and they will not pay the taxes even when an employment agency... MORE
January 6, 2004
Labor Market
Arnold Kling
We will get more news this Friday, but meanwhile Paul Krugman has stirred up a lot of invective, pro and con, with his comment that Such measures as the length of time it takes laid-off workers to get new jobs... MORE
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