Baumol Effect
en.wikipedia.org
Baumol Effect
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Re: Baumol Effect
#2Some related threads:
2017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14284466
Re: Baumol Effect
#3"they pointed out that the same number of musicians is needed to play a Beethoven string quartet today as was needed in the 19th century; the productivity of classical music performance has not increased. On the other hand, the real wages of musicians (as in all other professions) have increased greatly since the 19th century"
This seems painfully naive to the point of farce. Do they really believe the value of playing music is derived solely from the effort to produce it and not from how many people consume it and under what circumstances it is consumed?
When I was an econ undergrad and I would hear absurdly naive logic like this I always thought it was a sign that I didn't understand some complicated underlying concept. But it's just nonsense. I still don't understand why people don't call this obvious absurdity out.
Re: Baumol Effect
#4"they pointed out that the same number of musicians is needed to play a Beethoven string quartet today as was needed in the 19th century; the productivity of classical music performance has not increased. On the other hand, the real wages of musicians (as in all other professions) have increased greatly since the 19th century" This seems painfully naive to the point of farce. Do they really believe the value of playi…
Workers aren't paid according to the market value of their work but rather for what they can demand in the labor market and what it costs to produce and reproduce their labor. That hasn't changed.
Also, if anything, per capita demand for classical music is less now that it was a century or two ago.
Baumol's cost disease is a powerful explanation for why people like doctors, musicians, and nanny's seem to be paid more now than they were before. Don't dismiss it out of hand.
Re: Baumol Effect
#5"they pointed out that the same number of musicians is needed to play a Beethoven string quartet today as was needed in the 19th century; the productivity of classical music performance has not increased. On the other hand, the real wages of musicians (as in all other professions) have increased greatly since the 19th century" This seems painfully naive to the point of farce. Do they really believe the value of playi…
Seriously. They also ignore the fact that the productivity of classical music performance has increased.
Four musicians and their instruments can perform a string quartet for a crowd the same today as they could in 1850.
Four musicians and an engineer with instruments and recording gear can record that track today and make it available to the masses via one of a number of media vehicles-- and that recording and those mechanisms are different today than they were in 1995, than they were in 1965, and it's something that was entirely impossible in 1850.
Re: Baumol Effect
#6"they pointed out that the same number of musicians is needed to play a Beethoven string quartet today as was needed in the 19th century; the productivity of classical music performance has not increased. On the other hand, the real wages of musicians (as in all other professions) have increased greatly since the 19th century" This seems painfully naive to the point of farce. Do they really believe the value of playi…
Did you dismiss physics for the same reason? A perfectly elastic ball rolling down a frictionless plane, how absurd!
Re: Baumol Effect
#7"they pointed out that the same number of musicians is needed to play a Beethoven string quartet today as was needed in the 19th century; the productivity of classical music performance has not increased. On the other hand, the real wages of musicians (as in all other professions) have increased greatly since the 19th century" This seems painfully naive to the point of farce. Do they really believe the value of playi…
Did you drop out?
Re: Baumol Effect
#8"they pointed out that the same number of musicians is needed to play a Beethoven string quartet today as was needed in the 19th century; the productivity of classical music performance has not increased. On the other hand, the real wages of musicians (as in all other professions) have increased greatly since the 19th century" This seems painfully naive to the point of farce. Do they really believe the value of playi…
Seriously. They also ignore the fact that the productivity of classical music performance has increased. Four musicians and their instruments can perform a string quartet for a crowd the same today as they could in 1850. Four musicians and an engineer with instruments and recording gear can record that track today and make it available to the masses via one of a number of media vehicles-- and that recording and those…
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Re: Baumol Effect
#9"they pointed out that the same number of musicians is needed to play a Beethoven string quartet today as was needed in the 19th century; the productivity of classical music performance has not increased. On the other hand, the real wages of musicians (as in all other professions) have increased greatly since the 19th century" This seems painfully naive to the point of farce. Do they really believe the value of playi…
Did you dismiss physics for the same reason? A perfectly elastic ball rolling down a frictionless plane, how absurd!
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Re: Baumol Effect
#10There were some recent posts on Marginal Revolution about this:
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/05/th...
Also, Scott Alexander wrote a review of their book and a followup:
https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/17/followup-on-the-baumol...