High crisis pay [for temporary travel nurses] is exacerbating a chronic shortage of permanent medical staff across the country, which predates the pandemic and extends to all parts of the healthcare system. Hospital leaders expect their labor crunch to persist long after the pandemic has calmed. (WSJ, Aug. 2021)- What happens to the demand for travel nurses when COVID increases hospitalizations in some area?
- Have wages for travel nurses changed as predicted given your answer to Q1?
- What happens to the supply of permanent workers given your answer to Q2?
- Would the change you describe in Q3 exacerbate the labor crunch for permanent nurses?
- What do you predict will happen to wages for permanent nurses given your answers in Q3 and Q4?
- "Harris Health said in mid-August that it would raise pay for all emergency-department and adult-ICU nurses to $140 an hour until staffing levels stabilize." Is this increase consistent with your prediction in Q5?
A shortage of accommodation in Stockholm and other cities, is causing a major headache for young Swedes - in a country which has been championing rent controls since World War Two. (BBC, Aug. 2021)
Professors at UT-Austin may pay students to where masks (Aug 2021). It illustrates two different ways to get people to wear masks.- A mask mandate. Here, the university acts as the ruler and coerces people to wear masks. VCU, where I teach, requires masks in all indoor settings and encourages them outdoors when social distancing is not possible.
- A market for wearing masks. Here, someone pays people to wear masks. Adjustments in the price could increase or decrease compliance. An important question, of course, is, "Who pays the price?" Professors at UT-Austin think that the university should.
Coase discussed the notion that someone should pay someone else to reduce a negative externality when he developed what is now called the Coase Theorem.
The WSJ describes what happens when demand increases and supply remains constant. (August 2021)
