Some sectors of the economy have costs that rise faster than in other sectors. This simple insight and its implications lead to concern about the cost of government services as well as the survival of ...

For decades, the costs of education and health care have climbed far faster than other goods. The Baumol Effect is an oft-overlooked and underappreciated economic theory that explains why. So we ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Economics professor and wearer of many hats. This is where Kirzner shines. Kirzner answered a perplexing question in economic ...

The late William Baumol of New York University’s Stern School of Business, who died in May, once pointed out a pattern: while rising wages are typically attributed in part to rising labor productivity ...

“Trash removal costs go up not because garbage collectors become less efficient but because less labor is needed to manufacture a single computer, for instance, and wages in that industry (and others, ...

My Spidey-sense starts tingling every time I start to hear the same thing from everybody. Baumol’s cost disease as the explanation for the rising costs of higher education seems to be our latest ...

Yesterday’s announcement that New York Magazine, which pioneered the new journalism, will now be coming out biweekly rather than weekly is the latest indication that high-quality print magazines and ...

When news breaks, you need to understand what actually matters. At Vox, our mission is to help you make sense of the world — and that work has never been more vital. But we can’t do it on our own. We ...

There is a maxim in economics that increases in worker productivity tend to result in higher wages for workers. It makes some intuitive sense — if workers produce more goods per hour, thanks to a new ...

William Baumol, who made major contributions across a wide swath of economics and mentored two future Princeton University presidents, died Thursday, May 4, in New York. He was 95 years old. Baumol ...