Josh Bivens has the scoop: Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher has a secret paper telling us how to fight inflation: stop progress in reducing unemployment so that nominal wages never grow fast enough to actually boost living standards…
Blog Archives
Inequality vs Unemployment: Similar Causes, But Different Cures
David Autor has a new paper that he presented at the Federal Reserve conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming last week where he argues that labor-saving robots (and other new technologies) won’t raise unemployment. This has been a worry at least since the…
007 A License To Cut
Most US states require a license to cut hair. This is basically a way for the barbershop lobby to restrict competition and raise wages. This might be good for reducing American inequality because barbers are probably below the median wage…
Richer Kids Have Different Priorities
On NPR, Quoctrung Bui asked, Who Had Richer Parents, Doctors Or Artists?: A few weeks ago, we were sitting around the office arguing over this simple question: Who had richer parents, journalists or people working in finance? Doctors or artists?…
Posted in Inequality, Labor
It Is OK That Raising The Minimum Wage Hurts Someone
Economists like to talk a lot about Pareto improvements. This is the idea that you can make a change that improves life for somebody and hurts nobody. A Pareto improvement is obviously always an good idea. Nobody could object by…
What College Degree Is Most Valuable, BS, MS, or MRS?
In high school I knew some girls who wanted to find a husband at college. We made fun of them by joking that they didn’t want a BA degree, but a MRS degree instead. But in hindsight it isn’t the…
Posted in Labor
The Fed Doesn’t Care Much About Unemployment, But It Could Do Much Worse
Paul Krugman writes that wages are stagnant because unemployment is high and the owners of capital/corporations like that just fine. Their profits are up 60% above where they were before the recession began whereas compensation of employees is only up…
Medianism 