Until the 1990s, most economists believed that the minimum wage was a major cause of unemployment because that is what the canonical supply and demand model predicts. If wages rise, more people will want to work (increasing the quantity of…
Blog Archives
Does affirmative action in education reduce racial disparity?
The goal of affirmative action is a good one: It’s to reduce racial disparity. Like most Americans, I support this goal, but I don’t personally care much about the Supreme Court decision banning affirmative action in college admissions because affirmative…
Posted in Discrimination, Labor
Corporate takeover of groceries
Stacy Mitchell is the executive director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance who studies the problem of big businesses eating the entire economy. An economy full of small businesses has Less monopoly power which can mean lower prices. Greater diversity…
Is Wokeism bringing back a colorblind aristocratic class consciousness?
Updated March 29, 2023 Matt Yglesias argues that the old British class system had a lot of features that were eerily similar to recent trends in political correctness. For example, educational institutions, particularly at elite levels, have embraced DEI, but…
Posted in Discrimination, Philosophy and ethics
Steve Jobs got a small part of the Giant Turnip at Apple and a large part at Pixar
Updated January 20, 2024 When Apple’s founder Steve Jobs died in 2011, Matt Yglesias said that he was a net-worth failure compared to other computer executives of his era like Michael Dell and Bill Gates: The rivalry between Steve Jobs…
Posted in Labor, Managerial Micro
The Just Deserts of Capitalism and the Giant Turnip
Updated January 18, 2024 ≈35 minutes to read. Why do some people earn more money than others? The overly simplistic answer from neoclassical economics is that people earn what they produce. If a doctor earns four times as much as…
Posted in Inequality, Labor
Race Vs. Class At College
David Leonhard found that elite colleges have very little economic diversity. At elite schools, only a little over 10% of the student body comes from families below the median income. William Bowen, …was a co-author of a study several years ago that…
Medianism 