NPR on booze spending: bars “lagging in productivity growth”
Over time, booze spending has increased about 80% at bars and restaurants and decreased about 40% at stores…
This isn’t particularly surprising. Over time, you expect productivity gains and falling prices in manufactured goods. But a bartender today can’t make drinks any faster than a bartender 30 years ago. In other words, there haven’t been major productivity gains at bars. When a sector lags in productivity growth, it tends to have increasing prices.
Will be interesting to see what bars and restaurants look like in ten years…more table taps?
Charts here >> NPR.
