Why have some prices increased since 1950 by a factor of four while other prices have decreased by a factor of four? Technology is making so many goods and services much cheaper than in the past–that seems to be the normal situation–so why do some industries seem not only to be not progressing but actually retrogessing? As Scott Alexander put it, why are some industries so weird?

Those are the questions that motivated my latest piece, a short book with Eric Helland just released by the Mercatus Center titled, Why are the Prices so D*mn High?

In approaching this question I had some ideas in mind. I assumed that regulation, bloat and bureaucracy, monopoly power and the Baumol effect would each explain some of what is going on. After looking at this in depth, however, my conclusion is that it’s almost all Baumol effect. That conclusion radically changes one’s evaluation of price increases and decreases over the long run and it changes what, if anything, one might try to do to address such price changes.

Next week I will examine some of the evidence that pushes me towards this verdict. I’ll also take a closer look at the Baumol effect, which is mistakenly called the cost disease.

Let’s note here, however, what we need to explain. For the most part, we don’t see quick, big changes in prices that then level off. That in itself is interesting since policy tends to be discontinuous. We might expect a big regulation, for example, to cause a big increase in prices as industries adjust but then growth should return to normal. Instead, what we see and need to explain is slow, steady rising relative prices that happens over decades. Indeed, in some cases, such as education, prices have been increasing faster than average for more than a century! Puzzle over that over the long weekend. More next week!

Addendum: Other posts in this series.