Talk:Baumol effect

Please clean up and expand this article — Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.164.233.5 (talk • contribs) 09:35, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Wars
This suggests that Baumol's cost disease has an effect on the scale of wars. However, it is a blog post, though from the Economist. Does anyone have any thoughts about whether to include it? --Estrellador* 09:38, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I briefly random walked to this article, and don't have the current patience or knowledge to integrate the blog post you found. It does seem relevant, and would be a nice contrast to the "negative" point-of-view of the main article.  I've always thought fondly of Matthew Yglesias, so why not? If you, or anyone else who comes across this article, want to introduce it, you have my vote. --Formerly the IP-Address 24.22.227.53 (talk) 02:58, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

"Goes Against"?
The article, as written, appears to suggest that the Baumol phenomenon in some way contradicts the theory that wages are tied to productivity: "It involves a rise of salaries in jobs that have experienced no increase of labor productivity in response to rising salaries in other jobs which did experience such labor productivity growth. This goes against the theory in classical economics that wages are always closely tied to labor productivity changes."

This is mistaken, because it ignores cross-elasticity of demand. Because workers in one industry can move to another industry, employers in an industry in which productivity has not improved will be forced to raise their wages when productivity in other industries improves, carrying wages with it. Obviously, this will render the stagnant industry less profitable, and ultimately, if the trend continues, it will cease to be profitable, and the industry will disappear, as the labor is reassigned to more valuable purposes.

QBeamus@gmail.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.53.238.2 (talk) 18:10, 4 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I removed that problematic sentence. --SCriBu (talk) 00:23, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Furthermore, and depending upon what you mean by "classical economics", wages can also be driven up by any enforceable monopoly, such as licensing of the trade, or very high entry costs which effectively consume future wages, but may not be measured as doing so by Baumol et al. I'd also question the claims in his example of classical musicians. It seems to me that the technologies of radio, TV, concert sound systems, etc. have massively increased musicians' productivity and driven down the cost of musical entertainment, while driving up the wages paid to the "Rock Stars" of every genre.

GJaxon —Preceding unsigned comment added by GJaxon (talk • contribs) 02:09, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Nursing and college grading might be bad examples
Both nurses and college professors have had increases in productivity over time so we might need to find better examples. College professors have grading software assistance that they did not have decades ago. And nursing has also improved its productivity with useful technology to simplify many of their tasks and improve their production quality (pill dispensing, for example, is notably improved). I don't think that Baumol is saying that because one aspect of a job is resistant to productivity improvement there is no productivity improvement. For now I've put in a citation needed tag but I really think better examples need to be found for the effect. TMLutas (talk) 15:37, 2 August 2013 (UTC)


 * The article now uses "bankers", which is a terrible example. I substituted "retail managers", which may not be optimal, but is substantially better. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.149.142.164 (talk) 16:43, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Ricardo's Law of Rent
Interesting. This extends Henry George's extension of Ricardo's Law of Rent. Ricardo showed that rent levels depended on the quality of land that could be obtained for free. Henry George then showed how this defined minimum wage levels for agriculture and Baumol then showed how one wage affects another. The wage structure of an economy is one big web of choices. -- Derek Ross &#124; Talk'' 05:12, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Dead links
What should we do about them?--181.93.13.11 (talk) 05:27, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

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Preposterous or not well explained
Either Baumol's cost disease is a preposterous theory, or it is not very well explained in this article. The article suggests that it is contrary to economic theory that the income of string quartet musicians (who are no more productive than a century ago) should rise along with the income of automobile workers (who are many times more productive than a century ago). The notion that this is contrary to economic theory is preposterous. The earnings of string quartet musicians are set by supply and demand. Rising income across the economy means increased demand for talented string quartet musicians. The public wants to hear talented string quartet musicians, and those whose skills are good enough earn money from it should expect their incomes to rise (and fall) with per capita incomes, although not necessarily in exact proportion (it could faster or slower). Accepting that the productivity of health care providers has grown more slowly than the productivity of auto workers, there is no expectation that the earnings of health care providers should grow more slowly than the earnings of auto workers, because, again, incomes are set by supply and demand, and if health care incomes did not rise with the economy as a whole, workers would choose other professions, driving up the cost of health care workers. So, as I began, either it's a preposterous theory or it's not explained very well. —Anomalocaris (talk) 08:52, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 6 January 2023

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: Moved to Baumol effect, unopposed. No such user (talk) 13:56, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Baumol's cost disease → Baumol effect – Calling some economic effect a 'disease' is quite a negative description and I'm not sure if it is WP:NPOV. Using the term 'effect' or 'law' are also common and could be used instead. See Google Ngram. PhotographyEdits (talk) 08:55, 6 January 2023 (UTC) — Relisting. >>> Extorc . talk  15:52, 13 January 2023 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.