"making an activity illegal reduces the incidence of that activity" is not a "counter-intuitive statement". The literature shows a slight skew in results that

"making an activity illegal reduces the incidence of that activity" is not a "counter-intuitive statement". The literature shows a slight skew in results that show negative effects from minimum wage (& related policies): https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/12/beware-the-man-of-one-study/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/12/beware-the-man-of-one-... Scott thinks that the shape of the distribution implies publication bias; as per the very first comment thread in response to that post, I disagree with that interpretation. Since 101 theory would in fact predict a negative effect you can go ahead and assert with weak confidence that a negative effect exists. (You can also trivially demonstrate that above a certain threshold, like, say, $100/hr, you would have a negative effect. Now you need to add epicycles to your theory to explain why the effect would flip from negative to positive as that number goes down, while the mechanisms by which the negative effects occur remain unchanged.)