Re:Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?
by notJim on Friday June 11, 2021 @05:48PM
(#27478907)
> Eventually we ended up with a notion that everyone should go to college and this has been buttressed with government support but what if this idea is wrong?
I think the problem with this line of thinking is that since the US is a highly-developed country, we depend on having a well-educated, highly productive workforce in order to maintain our economy. The US is no longer a place where you have large numbers of people working in huge low-tech factories, for example, because the productivity of those factories does not afford the living standards of a highly-developed country. Instead, developed countries perform R & D and need highly-skilled workforces. To the extent we have manufacturing, it tends to be highly-automated advanced processes. Again, automation is enabling high worker productivity here.
It seems like the issue may be misallocation of the education being produced, not too much education in general.
I think the problem with this line of thinking is that since the US is a highly-developed country, we depend on having a well-educated, highly productive workforce in order to maintain our economy. The US is no longer a place where you have large numbers of people working in huge low-tech factories, for example, because the productivity of those factories does not afford the living standards of a highly-developed country. Instead, developed countries perform R & D and need highly-skilled workforces. To the extent we have manufacturing, it tends to be highly-automated advanced processes. Again, automation is enabling high worker productivity here.
It seems like the issue may be misallocation of the education being produced, not too much education in general.