Will David Card and Alan Krueger Be Amused?

Megan McArdle writes:

Megan McArdle: So if the only support for your positions [on the minimum wage] comes from movement think tanks (plus maybe a few marginal academics), your position is probably extremely weak...

Comments

[Megan McArdle]

It's amazing how much stupider I sound when you insert words I didn't say.

[Blake]

Any idea WTF Megan's talking about? My rule is that if I can't figure out what her point is within about 20 seconds, then I'll never figure it out myself no matter how many times I open her broken links or try to parse her opaque, turgid prose. How about a little help from you economists.

[rea]

"It's amazing how much stupider I sound when you insert words I didn't say."

Goodness, was it unfair of Prof. DeLong to point out that your post was about the minimum wage? Was it really about something else? Do you really think the bracketed phrase, "on the minimum wage" was what made your post sound stupid?

[bakho]

I think her post was suggesting that the Heritage and AEI positions on Minimum wage were suspect because the donors would not hire anyone that would produce a positive report? Her post could be more clear.

In countries that have no minimum wage employers often use workers to do very low productivity work. With a minimum wage, employers must invest in both equipment and training to make their workers productive enough to justify their employment at minimum wage.

The minimum wage is a positive force for increasing productivity of workers by eliminating jobs that are too unproductive or minimizing the less productive work because those jobs must be offset by more productive jobs elsewhere in the organization.

[Matt]

The minimum wage is an inflation signal. It gets updated periodically and encourages a shift in the banking regime.

[Angelica]

Methinks Brad doth post too fast.

Megan is correct in that Brad misrepresented the substance of her post, which was clear, if not exactly concise for such a simple point.

[Bruce Webb]

Puhlease. Megan made a simple point about agency capture which she illustrated with two examples, both of which happened to be the same example, that of minimum wage. To suggest that Brad misrepresented her in citing a sentence that was both preceded and succeeded by references to minimum wage by bracketing 'minimum wage' is absurd.

[A-ro]

It was technically accurate to show that her post was about the minimum wage by inserting "[on the minimum wage]" in that way.

Nevertheless, given that the academics one might think of first in the minimum wage debate are Card and Krueger, the insertion, along with the title of the post, might lead one to believe that McArdle was refering to Card and Krueger as "marginal academics." She was not.