k hanly wrote: "... the conclusion that minimum wages necessarily lead to greater unemployment is surely not that evident..."
Indeed. Under rigorous "neoclassical" analysis it is easily demonstrated that under monopsonistic or monopsonistically competitive labor market conditions (ie., where the hiring of a marginal unit of labor-power increases total labor cost by more than the cost of that marginal unit) imposition of a minimum wage can, and a marginal increase in an existing minimum wage will, increase total employment.
Shane Mage
"When we read on a printed page the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems mystical, mystifying, even downright silly.
When we read on a computer screen the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems self-evidently true." (N. Weiner)
