In 1965, a short article entitled ‘On the Performing Arts: An Anatomy of their Economic Problems’ appeared in the American Economic Review, the flagship journal of the American Economic Association.1 Written by two Princeton-affiliated economists, William J. Baumol and William G. Bowen, the article laid out in eight short pages a powerful explanation for why the operating costs of so many performing arts organizations consistently overran their earnings, and why this tendency had become more pronounced over time. The problem was not that lavish budgets were being spent on productions, nor that musicians’ unions had wrung too many concessions from management. Rather, the problem was more prosaic, having to do with ‘differential rates of growth in the economy’.2 To illustrate the argument, Baumol and Bowen asked readers to perform a thought experiment: ‘Think of an economy divided into two sectors: one in which productivity is rising and another where productivity is stable.’3 For the sake of simplicity, they explicitly assumed a number of useful fictions: that labour can easily and frictionlessly move between the two sectors; that wage increases across the board will keep pace with productivity growth (a standard if problematic assumption in modern economic theory);4 and that the monetary supply is sufficiently controlled to maintain overall price stability. What, given these assumptions, is the outcome of such a stark split in the economy? In the productive sector, the increase in wages that workers receive will be offset by increased productivity. In the stagnant sector, wages will rise but output will not. And if an organization is to avoid bankruptcy, the only way to do so is by raising prices to cover the rise in labour costs. (Remember, one of Baumol and Bowen’s working assumptions is that wage increases will keep pace with productivity growth, in both productive and stagnant sectors.) Yet this solution to the problem creates another one, since over time prices in the unproductive sector will increase at a much faster rate than those in the productive one, making the products of the former unaffordable to an increasing number of workers.

1965年，美国经济协会的旗舰期刊《美国经济评论》发表了一篇题为《论表演艺术：剖析他们的经济问题》的短文。1由两位普林斯顿大学附属经济学家 William J. Baumol 和 William G. Bowen 撰写，这篇文章用短短八页的篇幅有力地解释了为什么这么多表演艺术组织的运营成本一直超过他们的收入，以及为什么这种趋势随着时间的推移变得更加明显。问题不在于在制作上花费了大量预算，也不在于音乐家工会从管理层那里获得了太多让步。相反，这个问题更加平淡无奇，与“经济增长率的差异”有关。2为了说明这一论点，鲍莫尔和鲍文要求读者进行一个思想实验：“想象一个经济分为两个部门：一个部门的生产力正在上升，另一个部门的生产力稳定。” 3为简单起见，他们明确假设了一些有用的假设：劳动力可以轻松且无摩擦地在两个部门之间流动；全面的工资增长将与生产力增长保持同步（现代经济理论中如果假设有问题的标准）；4货币供应得到充分控制，以维持整体价格稳定。鉴于这些假设，经济如此严重分裂的结果是什么？在生产部门，工人获得的工资增加将被生产力提高所抵消。在停滞不前的部门，工资会上涨，但产出不会。如果一个组织要避免破产，唯一的办法就是提高价格来弥补劳动力成本的上升。（请记住，Baumol 和 Bowen 的工作假设之一是工资增长将与生产率增长保持同步，无论是在生产性部门还是停滞不前的部门。）然而，这个问题的解决方案会产生另一个问题，因为随着时间的推移，非生产性部门的价格将上涨比生产速度快得多，