Baumol

Another of my concern about the admission system is the Baumol's curse.

William Baumol was an economist at New York University. Together with William Bowen, he wrote a book titled Performing Arts: The Economic Dilemma in 1966. His point was simple: economic productivity of a society is reduced by the persistent rising costs in the performing arts.

For example, a string quartet 200 years ago had two violinists, a cellist, and a violist playing a piece of Mozart for 30 minutes. It is of course absurd to reduce the number or quality of the musicians - the productivity would not increase that way because no one would come to hear such a thing. Technology (say, DVD and iPod) would improve the productivity very little either, because live performance is just different.

The very fact is: musicians today expect a much higher wage than their predecessors 200 years ago. As a result, the cost of live production will continue to rise to hear Mozart.

The argument sounds child's play, doesn't it ?

The point is, medical practice also fits well into this logic.