Professor Richard J. Jensen Strikes (Out) Again

The Teen Who Exposed a Professor’s Myth

Miller opened up Rebecca’s thesis. He quickly realized all of the academics too busy to take on Jensen couldn't have done it better than a 14-year-old.

Before he was denying the existence of "no Irish need apply" advertising, Professor Jensen claimed that core, long-term unemployment during the Great Depression resulted from workers' shirking and stinting and the adoption by employers of "efficiency wage" policies to counter the willingness of "most workers (most of the time)... to coast a little."

The problem with that hypothesis, as Sandwichman pointed out a while ago, is that so-called shirking and stinting are treated variously as efficiency gains or efficiency losses depending on whether they are being performed by workers or by "entrepreneurs and investors." I know it's a subtle distinction. Ask a 14-year-old.