John Papola’s attempt at a productive discussion

This may be the beginning of a good discussion on economic worldviews (HT: Pretense of Knowledge) and is definitely worth a read.

Here’s a snippet of him responding to his opponent:

Mr. Livingston kicks off his rebuttal with a politically-charged round of ridicule complete with a barrage of buzzwords like “austerity,” “trickle-down” and “Reaganomics” whose sole purpose is to rile partisan fervor in the reader. My argument was thus hand-waved away as mere “faith” in classical economics with the assertion that “no amount of evidence” can shake me of my baseless dogma.

Reinhart and Rogoff: Lesson in statistical terms

Advocates of government spending are enjoying the recent news that errors were discovered in an often quoted 2010 analysis by economists Reinhart and Rogoff that showed countries with debt at levels (resulting from high spending) greater than 90% of GDP had an average GDP growth rate of -0.2%, which was statistically lower than countries with lower debt levels.

Recent corrections show that these countries actually had averaged 2.2% growth, not -0.2%, which is not statistically different from countries with lower debt levels.

Critics have accused R&R’s analysis of spurring irresponsible austerity in government spending and may have prevented more beneficial government stimulus spending around the world.

But, wait. The corrected analysis shows that countries with lower debt had higher GDP growth rates ranging from 3.1% to 4.2%. Yep. In this data set, apparently 2.2% is not statistically different from 4.2%.

That doesn’t mean that the data shows that government spending helps (or hurts) GDP. It also doesn’t mean that ‘austerity’ hurts or helps.

To be clear…it means nothing. Government spending advocates are not wise to use the the corrected stats bolster their case.

Not statistically different means that from the size and sample of this set of data, it cannot be concluded with high confidence that the differences in GDP growth rates are caused by the differences in debt levels.  But, it doesn’t rule it out either.

If anything, the analysis still provides directional support that debt may hurt, rather than help.

Personally, I’m not a fan of GDP. I explain why here, here and here. Basically, it’s because GDP treats an expense like an income.

Russ Roberts on the minimum wage

Russ Roberts had some good recent posts about the minimum wage on Cafe Hayek. The paragraphs below are from his post about his follow-up thoughts to a debate he participated in to abolish the minimum wage:

Everyone, on the left and the right, agree that employers are eager to save costs and will substitute machines for workers or outsource production if those changes are profitable. Why will artificially higher wages created by minimum wage legislation not lead to similar substitutions?

No joke. But, of course, proponents of minimum wage will cite ‘empirical evidence’ that shows that raising the minimum wage has no effect on jobs or employment. And, of course, they never consider that these studies may not tell the whole story or have limitations.

They also seem to forget basic econ where we are taught that if a price floor is well below the going-market rate, it won’t have much affect on supply. In other words, if the minimum wage is well below the going market labor rate, then it won’t have much effect on jobs. For example, if I set a minimum wage at $0.50/hour, most people would intuitively know that’s so low, it doesn’t  effect anyone — employees or employers.

So, while minimum wage studies are often heralded as empirical support for raising the minimum wage, they are much more likely to be empirical support for that basic econ understanding of a price floor.

Next (emphasis mine):

The weird part of the debate over the magnitude of the employment effects, is that when someone uses the reductio ad absurdum of a minimum wage increase to say $50 or $100 an hour, everyone understands that won’t work because it would destroy the labor market. So where do those disemployment effects kick in? If the minimum wage is small enough so that it doesn’t cause job losses, then it can’t be having much of an effect boosting wages.

Yes. Where do the disemployment effects kick in? Great question and I never hear anybody ask it or answer. It’s similar to the ‘rich must pay their fair share’ tax debate where the answer is always ‘more’.

It occurred to me after reading this paragraph that the same people who cite empirical evidence that changes in the minimum wage don’t affect jobs (that price floors below the going market rate don’t change supply), don’t seem interested in asking about empirical evidence that raising the minimum wage actually increases wages.

I suppose they assume that if it doesn’t change the number of a jobs and a few people are marking more now, then wages must go up.  But, that assumes a lot. For example, it assumes other things don’t change — like the number of hours worked and the value of fringe benefits like employee discounts — to name a couple.

Two good ones from Greg Mankiw

I like it when well-respected Harvard economist, Greg Mankiw, gets snippy. In this post on his blog, he snips at Kathleen Sebelius’ lack of understanding of the the term insurance.

Also, I recommend reading Mankiw’s Sunday NY Times opinion column about what fiscal sustainability means.

Two Davids, an Optimist and a Diamond

Something made me think about this post from February 2012 and this post from May 2012.

In the first post, I try to explain to David Brooks that his social engineering predecessors created the problem he now wants to solve and he doesn’t recognize that the easiest way to solve it is to undue what they created.

In the second post, I discuss an EconTalk podcast with guest David Schmidtz who cuts right to the nub of the problem with the you-benefit-from-society-so-I get-to-tell-you-what-to-do mindset. The key phrase from Schmitdtz that jogged my memory of this post:

Tell me at what point other people helping me made me your property.

As I re-read that post, I had a couple additional thoughts.

First, not only is the do-gooder presumptuous enough to think they are entitled to tell others what to do, but they derive that belief from what others have done, not themselves. Indeed, when they say they get to tell you to be healthy because they pay for your health care, ask how much they’ve paid so far. Ask for a receipt.

This entitlement to tell others what to do is usually based on the idea that “society” has provided roads, teachers and police protection (again, usually provided by others, not them) in which we all benefit.

But, where did roads come from? From government? From taxes?

Where did those come from?

From wealth creation. At some point in human history we became productive enough through private trading to free up some spare time for some folks to be able to work on things beyond acquiring today’s calories — like protecting us and representing us from and for each other.  Wealth creates government, not the other way around.

For more depth on that topic, I recommend Matt Ridley‘s The Rational Optimist and Jared Diamond’s, Guns, Germs and Steel.

On the Cyprus bank deposit tax

At least that’s a transparent theft of money, as opposed to the less transparent inflation that results of printing more cash.

Note: Yes…I originally referenced Greece in this post. I am dumb and do not know my Mediterranean geo-politics. But, I’m learning.

Proposal for new requirements for econ majors

1. Demonstrate that as an economist, you know your limits. As Russ Roberts writes:

Economics isn’t rocket science; it’s a lot harder. We should admit as much and when asked to measure things we cannot measure, we should admit our ignorance.

As an economist, you should be the biggest and best critic of your work.

Even when your work seems airtight, you should caution that you may be missing something.

You should invite criticism of your own work.

When somebody wants to use your work to justify policy positions, you should be warning them, rather than encouraging them.

You should be able to properly identify your own biases and tendencies.

Economists should take an oath similar to the Hippocratic Oath taken by physicians: First, do no harm.

2. Discussion requirements: You should be able to carry out discussions and debates without fallacy.

The persistent use of fallacy in discussion (rather than the occasional and willing-to-admit-it-when-pointed-out use) should be taken as a signal that you place a higher priority on what you believe is true than what is true.

“…it isn’t science”

In case I haven’t mentioned it before, Russ Roberts is on my list of non-pathetic economists. I recommend reading his article, Know Your Limits, in The European Magazine.

This article sums up nicely why Russ thinks we should be more skeptical of economists who are not willing to admit or, worse, aren’t aware of the limits to what they know.

Now You’re Talking

I like some of the latest batch posts that I’ve read on minimum wage.  Here’s a roundup.

1. In this post on the minimum wage on Cafe Hayek, Russ Roberts does a great job articulating a world more complex than any of our models can replicate. True. That’s one reason cost benefit analyses suck. Models are to complex systems as caricatures are to people. They’re nice to hang on the wall, but they don’t talk or anything.

Here’s a sample:

So that when legislation artificially raises price, the debate is over the impact on quantity–how many jobs will be lost (or gained if you’re on the other side.)

But price and quantity are not the only way market forces work. And they are certainly not the only attributes of a job. There is how hard you have to work, how many breaks you get, how much training or mentoring or kindness. What amenities are in the workplace–snack bar, vending machine, nicely decorated walls and so on. When the government requires that wages be higher than what they would otherwise be, that creates an increase in the number of people who would like to work and reduces the number of opportunities available.

2. The Grumpy Economist, John Cochrane, suggests that discussing the minimum wage is “fiddling while Rome burns”, even if the economic magic of raising the minimum doesn’t effect employment were true.

3. Kudos to Russ Roberts’ co-blogger on Cafe Hayek, Don Boudreaux, for his response to a colleague who questioned why he spent so much time writing about the minimum wage:

I protest the legislated minimum-wage because I have a visceral hostility to shabby economics.

Encountering arguments premised on the (typically unconscious) notion that most employers routinely sit on figurative piles of excess profits or returns that can be tapped into by government diktat (“Raise your workers’ wages!”) without any compensating adjustments or reactions by employers makes my head ache.  Encountering otherwise respectable economists performing rococo theorizing in their attempts to explain why unskilled human labor is somehow exempt from the simple application of the law of demand makes my head ache.

Encountering otherwise respectable economists who lend credence, usually unawares, to the person-in-the-street creationist superstition – a creationist superstition held by non-economists on the ideological spectrum ranging from the likes of Harold Meyerson to Bill O’Reilly – that prices, wages, employment conditions, and other economic phenomena are determined arbitrarily, and more or less consciously, by someone in power rather than by decentralized and largely spontaneous market, competitive forces makes my head ache.  Letting stand unchallenged this Meyerson-O’Reilly sense that, therefore, the only question is which powerful group of people will determine prices and wages – the government or the oligarchs? – makes my head ache.

Encountering claims that human welfare can be increased so easily and so surely by mere diktat makes my head ache.

Challenging such claims is the equivalent, for me, of swallowing two aspirin tablets.

Oh yeah…liberty

Since President Obama mentioned hiking the minimum wage in his State of the Union address, it has been a hot topic on the econ blogs. Does it reduce jobs? Does it help the poor? Does it hurt them?

Credit to Grant Davies for kindly pointing out in the comments of my post about the minimum wage that the best argument against it is liberty

As I’ve read the plethora of blog posts about the minimum wage over the past few days from liberty-minded economists and bloggers, who have greatly influenced my thinking, Grant’s comment kept echoing in my mind.

The best (and only argument that should be required) against the minimum wage is liberty. Grant wrote:

As a human being, I have an absolute right to make arrangements between myself and another so long as it does not infringe on the rights of others.

Why should someone be able to prevent me from accepting a wage, if I so choose? If it is agreeable to me and agreeable to person willing to pay it, who cares?

Grant’s comment echoed in my mind as I read those blogs because so rarely was the case for liberty mentioned. They’ve taken the bait. Nearly all of the blog posts I read try to disprove the ‘greater good’ argument, rather than state the case for liberty.

Also, credit to The Pretense of Knowledge blog for including with other ‘minimum wage’ blog links, a link to a post about Dr. Higgs’ essay on the moral case for liberty. I commented on that essay here.

Besides there are also really good reasons to be skeptical about ‘greater-good’ arguments. They usually are wrong or, at best, inconclusive. Why violate liberty for that?