17 January 2017

Clearing out more of the questions asked on the radio lately. The announcement of the closure of the Macy’s in the local mall set some callers into fits. Their issues and questions ranged from: Is this a harbinger of future closures in Grand Forks and/or Fargo; to: this mall has inadequate numbers of stores and the wrong kind. There were lots of other issues raised too, so let’s clear a few of these things up right now.

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Minimum wage returned to the Jarrod Thomas Show as a topic this week and it seemed appropriate to answer a few questions and respond to a few points in more detail than I could during the program. First, empirically, the outcomes from legislation increasing minimum wages is far from clear. Most people apply a Principles of Microeconomics level analysis and have supply and demand curves and a price floor that drives a wedge. As I say on the radio when this comes up, this is good, as far as it goes, and unfortunately that is not very far.

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