Understanding the economic impact of prevailing wage

By Kevin Duncan

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

 

As a practicing economist for the last 30 years, I have spent much of that time studying the impact of prevailing-wage policies. And I was heartened to see that George Hawkins had looked at some of my recent work.

Mr. Hawkins rightly notes that too often, the debate over the merits of prevailing-wage policies has devolved into ideologically based arguments and conspiracy theories – neither of which is rooted in fact or data-driven analysis.

Peer-reviewed economists enjoy no such luxury, and that’s what has made a series of new impact analyses about prevailing wage – analyses that for the first time model the impact of these policies on broader economic factors such as job creation – so important, and so discomforting for those who oppose these standards.

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