re: Doug's question

[James Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jason says: >While I concur, the medical industry is in shambles w.r.t.
"productivity."
Have you had a good experience with your HMO lately?<

You aren't responding to a quote from me, but I'll answer anyway: I have a
hard time understanding what "productivity" means for HMOs. Number of sick
people cured divided by the number of employee-hours hired?

Service industries are notorious for making the measurement of output -- and
thus produtivity -- difficult if not impossible. That's why I would focus on
goods-producing industries, assuming that if prod. takes off there it
probably does so with services, too, but to a lesser extent because service
labor is harder to supervise in many cases.

I'm agnostic about whether or not productivity is really coming back in the
manufacturing industries. Like Doug, I don't have enough info... It's
possible, though, that all this high-tech stuff is finally paying off. But
who knows?


Jim Devine
jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html
Academic version of a Bette Midler song: "you are the hot air beneath my wings."