I don’t understand how baumol’s cost thing is any different than lower supply of labor causing price of labor to rise, and why it would merit a special name or Wikipedia entry.
It's not just about a lower supply of labor, really. It's not cleanly captured in terms of supply and demand. The reason a string quartet costs more now isn't because there are fewer people who can play instruments, it's because other things pay better.
In other words: if the average worker salary suddenly rose by 100% in every area except classical musicians (let's say there's some magical new productivity technology that increases productivity for every job except music, and further say that the workers capture that value) then the classical musician salary would also rise, because otherwise people would stop becoming musicians at the same rates. Nowhere in this thought experiment did the supply of labor change.
lotsofpulp|5 years ago
mordymoop|5 years ago
In other words: if the average worker salary suddenly rose by 100% in every area except classical musicians (let's say there's some magical new productivity technology that increases productivity for every job except music, and further say that the workers capture that value) then the classical musician salary would also rise, because otherwise people would stop becoming musicians at the same rates. Nowhere in this thought experiment did the supply of labor change.