A debate on Free exchange has centred around the use of Economics 101 models, and a related threads at Jane Galt and Ezra Klein centre around the use of anecdote versus data.
The two are clearly connected. If the point in question can be iluminated by a simple model. An anecdote can crystallize it further.
A case in point: Restrictions on firing people reduce the ability of employers to seek alternative labour; a minimum wage restricts the ability of potential works to offer their services at reduced rates; restrictions on working hours means harder working people cannot offer themselves as such. The simple model predicts bad outcomes for employers and potential employees; the only beneficiaries are incumbent employees, but even they lose out through higher taxes to pay for benefits and higher prices of goods.
And we know that the kind of people who are generally willing to work harder, for less, are immigrants.
A simple model, yes. But here’s the illuminating and very sad anecdote.
Although Hamid followed this advice and got a good economics degree he could not find work, not even as an unpaid intern….He eventually went to Sweden, got a grant to study for a masters degree in business administration …He then landed a well-paid job at telecommunications giant Ericsson…But his mother begged him to return to France…and after several weeks was offered one job as a travelling salesman….
But there is a happy ending.
At that point Hamid decided he had no future in France and moved to the UK where he worked for BP and Philip Morris before setting up his own consultancy firm
The BBC article linked to is a case in point when anecdote is useful or useless. Combined with the simple message of the econ 101 model, I think the anecdote is illuminating. The way the BBC tell the story - that Hamid is the victim of instituional racism - doesn’t make it clear whether this could be an isolated incident; a product of some character defect in Hamid or similar. The way the BBC use the anecdote, one would potentially arrive at the wrong policy - something like ‘trying to outlaw racism’ or having quotas or positive discrimination.
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