tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2830084253401570472.post4670664879195855536..comments2024-03-28T09:22:36.967+13:00Comments on Offsetting Behaviour: The Unemployable and the UnemployingEric Cramptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15831696523324469713noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2830084253401570472.post-77301862474908974772012-10-24T11:46:15.179+13:002012-10-24T11:46:15.179+13:00The veneer was that people would love emptying the...The veneer was that people would love emptying their own bins and our sustainability focus would help us attract staff and students. Eric Cramptonhttp://offsettingbehaviour.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2830084253401570472.post-34692365634682065502012-10-24T11:24:10.019+13:002012-10-24T11:24:10.019+13:00It will not, by substantially lifting the minimum ...<i> It will not, by substantially lifting the minimum wage, engineer a wholesale winnowing-out of New Zealand's most inefficient businesses.</i>I've heard variants of this argument before used in favor of all kinds of cost-increasing taxes and regulations (employment, environmental and other) -- if this impost is the difference between your business surviving and failing, it wasn't really a very good business to start with. And I've read (I forget where) someone attributing part of Sweden's mid-century success to employment laws that killed off small businesses and only allowed the most competitive and scalable to survive (don't know if there is much (any) empirical support for this).<br /><br /><br />And I remember being taught at U. of Akld many years back by a management lecturer (someone formally associated with the Labour Party) who argued that more flexible employment laws such as the ERA would result in a "low wage, low growth" economy because they would implicitly help small businesses. <br /><br /><br />The logic was always weak, but in this era when the importance of SMEs and start-ups is recognised by everyone, it comes across as a slightly perverse sentiment.<br /><br /><i> Here at Canterbury, a few years before the earthquakes, the University got rid of some of the cleaners and started making staff empty their own waste baskets into central bins on each floor of each Department.*</i><br />Not to mention the effect on morale. And the hit on Canterbury's reputation on the international hiring market (the environmental veneer was probably necessary to limit those costs).kiwi davenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2830084253401570472.post-29118847087020657992012-10-24T11:23:34.010+13:002012-10-24T11:23:34.010+13:00If you want a "a wholesale winnowing-out of N...If you want a "a wholesale winnowing-out of New Zealand's most inefficient businesses" isn't product market competition the answer. Even if a higher minimum wage worked it seems a very odd way of achieving the end.Paul Walkernoreply@blogger.com