[lbo-talk] Dean Baker on immigration

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Mon Apr 17 06:18:45 PDT 2006


Alex quoted Dean Baker:


>Those of us who believe that the minimum wage has relatively little
>impact on employment, have a difficult time explaining how a large increase in
>labor supply will have little impact on wages.

Curiously, the same economist, David Card, has done work arguing for both. His studies of the minimum wage - which in part compared jurisdictions that were demographically and economically similar except for the presence or absence of a minimum wage law (or just after a change in a minimum wage law) - found little or no effect on employment. And his study of the impact of the Mariel boatlift in the early 1980s on the Miami labor market found little effect on wages. You could say that it's Card's position that's consistent: the relation between the price of labor and its supply and or demand is more inelastic than we might guess.

Doug



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