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From: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Minimum wages
Message-ID: <279@gargoyle.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 16-Dec-85 19:33:44 EST
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.279
Posted: Mon Dec 16 19:33:44 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 17-Dec-85 18:56:17 EST
Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Organization: U. of Chicago, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 26
Summary: 

In a terse, 397-line reply to Jim Balter, Nat Howard mentions Milton
Friedman's *Free to Choose* as arguing against the minimum wage.
Friedman is associated with the conservative "Chicago school" of
economic thought.  Others associated with Chicago economics, notably
Gary Becker, have developed "the economic approach to human behavior"
in which economic analysis is applied to patterns of human behavior,
such as marriage and crime, that are not ordinarily treated by
economics.  In this approach one seeks to explain crime, for example,
as the result of people rationally maximizing their expected
utilities.  I don't know too much about this but the basic idea seems
to make a good deal of sense.

One implication of this viewpoint is that as prevailing wage rates
decline, more people will turn to crime, since crime becomes a
relatively more attractive method of "earning" a living.  So it
becomes a reasonable question to ask whether a minimum wage tends
to reduce crime, and if so to what extent.  I see no prima facie
reason for regarding this "crime effect" as either nonexistent or
insignificant.

So my question for our distinguished panel of experts is:  Could you
please discuss the "crime effect" with regard to the minimum wage, or
at least provide references to books or articles in which this
question is addressed by opponents of the minimum wage?
-- 
Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes