Another wage increase might indeed reduce employment, Krueger says. But for all his caution, standard theory is no longer the same in his eyes. Empirical economics blossomed in the mid-20th century, feeding on the growing quantities of economic data the government collected and the new polls that explored consumer attitudes and behavior. Theory, with its emphasis on abstract, mathematical modeling, took command by the 1960s. Only in the last decade has empirical economics gradually regained a footing, first in labor economics and then in finance, education and trade.
Computers make the data easier to process.
By the early 1990s, nearly half the articles in economics journals dealt with empirical research, up from 27 percent in 1960, one study showed. Krueger grew up in Livingston, N.J., where his father, an accountant, still practices. His mother taught first grade in nearby East Orange. But he followed his sister, Barbara, to Cornell and enrolled in its School of Industrial and Labor Relations, thinking he would become a lawyer. As research for a paper, he found himself analyzing data on productivity and wages, a typical empirical inquiry.