I think you are on the right track with this post. You and your readers might want to look at the late William Baumol's Yale University Press (2012) book The Cost Disease, which develops some of the ideas about technical change and the level and composition of employment in more detail.
Yes, I'd agree Baumol is relevant here. I found it difficult to integrate here due to the framing, which is a downside in this context. "Cost Disease" is an unfortunate framing for something that ultimately represents progress. The core insight is looking for cross-sector dynamics, rather than having a narrow lens that forgets how interconnected it all is.
That still leaves many perspectives from which to start using that insight. I think a lot of Baumol's framing has to do with where his interest started in the topic. He did not start by trying to explain job reallocation and composition, but increasing nominal and proportional costs of arts.
Even with his 2012 book, where he had recognized this, it's hard to translate some of the framing. The "stagnant sector" is the one that will grow and where we should expect job growth. Hardly a intuitive jump.
That framing serves better to explain why we cannot reduce proportional healthcare costs back to 1960 proportions because the "stagnant" is improving productivity slower.
But since that label is specific to relative productivity, not a universal label, it leads to confusion when approached from any other perspective.
I think you are on the right track with this post. You and your readers might want to look at the late William Baumol's Yale University Press (2012) book The Cost Disease, which develops some of the ideas about technical change and the level and composition of employment in more detail.
Yes, I'd agree Baumol is relevant here. I found it difficult to integrate here due to the framing, which is a downside in this context. "Cost Disease" is an unfortunate framing for something that ultimately represents progress. The core insight is looking for cross-sector dynamics, rather than having a narrow lens that forgets how interconnected it all is.
That still leaves many perspectives from which to start using that insight. I think a lot of Baumol's framing has to do with where his interest started in the topic. He did not start by trying to explain job reallocation and composition, but increasing nominal and proportional costs of arts.
Even with his 2012 book, where he had recognized this, it's hard to translate some of the framing. The "stagnant sector" is the one that will grow and where we should expect job growth. Hardly a intuitive jump.
That framing serves better to explain why we cannot reduce proportional healthcare costs back to 1960 proportions because the "stagnant" is improving productivity slower.
But since that label is specific to relative productivity, not a universal label, it leads to confusion when approached from any other perspective.