Depending on how you define "product." We all know that barber-service "produces" a new hair style while, ideally, education "produces" educated and medical service "produces" cured individuals. This latter type of definition of "production" may be consitent with the possibility of increased productivity due to powerpoint and better imaging technologies.
Frank, Ellen wrote:
It's not so much that service industries resist technological change, as that technological changes in direct service industries increase outlays without raising productivity. Shifting from chalk-and-talk to powerpoint, for example, raises the fixed costs of education, but unless class sizes go up, this has no impact on productivity. Better imaging technologies raise health care costs and may improve outcomes, but have little impact on productivity.
Ellen
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I was recently asked whether universities should teach values. My response was that universities, whether implicitly or otherwise, always, always teach values. They teach values in the way they hire and treat employees.
Ruth Simmons President, Brown University
------------------------------------------ E. Ahmet Tonak Simon’s Rock College of Bard Great Barrington, MA 01230
Phone: 413-528 7488 Fax: 413-528 7365 Cell: 413-329 7856
Homepage: www.simons-rock.edu/~eatonak
