[PEN-L:27300] RE: Italian labor

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

Title: RE: [PEN-L:27286] Italian labor

Thanks, Roberto. Perhaps you -- or someone else -- should write a letter to the editors of the New York TIMES (letters@xxxxxxxxxxx)

When you write "My main point is that, whatever the political ideas of the journalist (in this case I would say more rather right wingish), the article is poorly written, for ignorance or on purpose," you capture the essence of Krueger's problem: he's not a journalist but a mainstream (neoclassical) economist. He probably didn't talk to workers or lawyers or labor experts and most likely didn't even talk to employers. Neoclassical economists start with an _a priori_ vision of the world as one of perfect markets that may be a little flawed by "market imperfections" and typically talk only to economists (and typically only respect the opinions of other neoclassical economists). So even a mildly liberal neoclassical such as Kreuger gives us only the conventional wisdom. As they say in the computer biz, "garbage in/garbage out."

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine