Terrorism

In August 2007, Krueger wrote a book entitled "What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism" debunking the theory that poverty leads to terrorism. In the book, Krueger argued that most terrorists come from the middle-class or upper elite of their societies. He contended that target countries like the U.S. should focus on the possibility of catastrophic events like a nuclear attack, not small ones, in trying to prevent terrorist acts.

In a complex economy "terrorism - as awful and reprehensible as it is ... leaves the bulk of the human and physical capital stock intact," wrote Krueger.

Krueger also stressed the problem with labeling a terrorist. Distinguishing a "terrorist" from a "freedom fighter" is tough, he argued. Using the example of President George Washington, Krueger reminded readers that the British labeled him a terrorist.

Wages

In September 1994, Krueger along with co-author David Card released a study that aimed to answer whether a hike in the minimum wage would spur job losses, as conservatives have frequently argued.

The argument stems from the premise that if a company needs to raise wages then it will simply hire fewer employees. As a test case, the authors used New Jersey, which had raised its minimum wage from $4.25 an hour to $5.05 an hour in 1992. Krueger and Card examined the impact that hike had the state's fast-food restaurants. For a control group, the authors studied the workforce at eastern Pennsylvania fast-food restaurants. They found no evidence that the minimum wage increase forced New Jersey chains to hire fewer people.

This conclusion upset Richard Berman, executive director of the Employment Policies Institute - a research group funded by manufacturers, restaurants and retailers - that opposed the minimum wage hike. Berman wrote op-eds for a variety of newspapers arguing that the information presented by Krueger and Card misled the public. "Our analysis of the payroll data for both the New Jersey and Pennsylvania restaurants reveals that these fast-food franchises increased employment from February to November along historical seasonal trends," wrote Berman in 1995. "However, while the Card-Krueger data imply that the New Jersey minimum wage hike resulted in an employment increase of 12 percentage points relative to Pennsylvania, the actual payroll data show that New Jersey's employment growth lagged Pennsylvania's by five percentage points."

Krueger and Card used Berman's admonition as incentive to repeat their study in 2000. This time, they even used data from the Employment Policies Institute. Their conclusions didn't change. "The increase in New Jersey's minimum wage probably had no effect on total employment in New Jersey's fast-food industry, and possibly had a small positive effect," wrote Krueger and Card.

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