Today, economic time value could benefit from organizational capacity which exists in relation "to itself". Time arbitrage would allow new forms of economic complexity to exist within a closed, recognizable loop of wealth creation, which nonetheless remains open and supportive of both new participants and tradable sector activity. This form of (internal) non tradable sector formation would make it possible to work more directly with technological factors, thereby reducing employment uncertainty for the long term. Not only would it become easier to determine production and consumption preferences for time based product, but the resulting time valuations wouldn't impede overall pricing structures, to the degree that tends to occur in general equilibrium conditions.
How have economic relationships changed? In tradable sector activity, economic time value exists in relation to other resources that are utilized (coordinated) within a recognizable, single institutional context. Hence when workers within these groups organized to protect time value (via unionization), the results could readily be noted on the pricing constructs on the affected corporate institution.
Whereas the pricing effects of unionization for non tradable sector activity cannot be directly observed, and this form of unionization is far more prevalent than that of manufacture, in the present. These wage and pricing effects exist in relation to general equilibrium (and region "desirability" or economic value), as opposed to the internally coordinated resource capacity and pricing structures of tradable sector institutional management.
For instance, Ryan Avent noted the problem of time based services product as Baumol's disease in "The Wealth of Humans". Today's time based services pricing, exists in relation to the pricing of wealth which is derived on more direct resource based terms. However, pricing time based product to correlate with the pricing of tradable product structure, is like pricing apples as though they were oranges, even though real estate markets have long encouraged this form of local income smoothing via property zoning. Even more distorting, is a form of time aggregate "inclusion" as attempted in recent decades for healthcare in the U.S. (via employer responsibility). These misplaced efforts have further "muddied the waters", for both tradable sector and non tradable sector pricing structures.
Consider for a moment, how organizational patterns for primary market activity have evolved in recent centuries. Early on, first mover activity for output included gains in the form of individual contribution, such as the market for beaver pelts as noted by early classical economists. Personalized relationships to local resource potential were supplemented by local group coordination for time value, albeit still in relation to local resource capacity. Granted, some local group (and familial) coordination took place on non economic or cultural terms. These forms of resource adaptation were generally not needed (in developed nations), once extensive innovations in agriculture and manufacture encouraged the beginnings of a consumer based culture.
An important shift took place with the advent of broad agricultural gains, in terms of the economic relationships of individuals, and what had been local group formation for mutually desired ends. For those of us in the southern U.S., this pattern change is still part of living memory. As governments assumed greater responsibility in trade flows, the relationships of individuals and (previously local) groups with primary market and tradable sector activity, became linked to organizations that were less local in character. These organizations - in turn - connected to institutions which shared resource capacity across a now recognizable general equilibrium setting.
In recent decades, this institutional relationship has once again shifted. As primary markets thinned in relation to the secondary markets of developed nations, the Wicksellian interest rate followed the downward trend of more investment in what was unfortunately becoming less primary market activity and/or capacity. Today, one's economic relationship to resource capacity in general, is altogether likely to exist in a dependent market position. This secondary relationship not only makes the time valuation of non tradable sector activity difficult to decipher, but its broad continuance, less certain. After all, this form of economic time value exists in relation to a complete equilibrium construct, instead of the recognizable sets of resource management which can readily be tapped in primary markets, and their single price structure in general equilibrium.
However, tradable sector formation has experienced its own internal resource management issues in the U.S., given the employer responsibility for healthcare which is now an additional burden for all resource management structure. Consequently, both the pricing of time value and product is not as straightforward, as if resource coordination were of a complete internal design. It is impossible to decipher how this relatively new responsibility, affects either tradable sector output or primary market formation and capacity as a whole.
Even though politics has shifted towards the desire to preserve tradable sector activity of late, the real uncertainty exists in terms of the non tradable sector employment which can reasonably be expected to be preserved in the decades to come. Fortunately, internal organization of economic time value (in relation "to itself"), would be possible to return time value in aggregate to wealth production potential. Particularly important, is the fact time arbitrage would function the same as any other expansion of primary market activity, which could eventually restore a positive Wicksellian interest rate to the marketplace.
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