Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Buy local -- how productive?
John Palmer is thinking about these claims too.
Suppose I shop locally when I could get something for a lower price by shopping on the internet. I'd be better off, and I would have some money left over. If I paid the higher price to the local merchant they'd have the extra money instead of me. But they'd be shipping a bunch of the money outside the community, too, to pay for the merchandise they sold and to buy other things for themselves. I don't see much difference except they'd be richer and I'd be poorer.You'd need some kind of input-output analysis to get that figured out more precisely, but the only effect I see is that somehow the local shopkeepers will pay better wages to my low-wage workers than the Wal-Marts and McDonalds. But if those places disappeared, do you think the same number of jobs would be available by the local merchants at higher wages? A decrease in demand for workers would push wages up? You'll have to work me through that logic.
Labels: economics