According to you, we are paying a low price for goods to be safely transported. What's the problem?
The point is that we're willing to put truckers through harsher and tougher conditions in exchange for cheaper goods. The tradeoff is less safety. It'd be perfectly possible for a company to have truckers drive max 8 hours a day, with 2 hour stretches of driving separated by 15 minutes of rest time. This would be safer for the trucker and for other drivers, but a company that did this would simply be unprofitable unless other companies were, one way or another, mandated to do the same.
If that were true, I'd have a very easy time hiring programmers and artists. Or are the laws of economics somehow different for truckers than for programmers?
This is a slightly muddled understanding of economics. You're acting like the reason things suck now is that the labor market for trucker labor isn't in equilibrium. The issue is that it is, almost by definition. The reason truckers drive at a different level of safety now than in other possible realities is because that's how the market is. To change that you'd have to change the current regulatory regime.
Descriptively speaking, the structure of the labor market in trucking is different than that for programmers. Markets can empirically differ, you know. Engineers have specialized skills and multiple purchasers for their labor. Indeed, in lots of ways an engineer has some level of monopoly power over her employer, due to the non-fungibility of her labor and the search costs.
The same is not true for truckers. They don't have specialized skill sets, and their labor is demanded by only a few large firms at most. Search costs are almost nonexistent. This gives employers significant power over them in the labor market.
This would be safer for the trucker and for other drivers, but a company that did this would simply be unprofitable unless other companies were, one way or another, mandated to do the same.
According to you, truckers are already safer than non-truckers. Isn't that safe enough?
If not, should we also raise safety levels for car drivers? If so, what is optimal level of safety when operating a motor vehicle?
You're acting like the reason things suck now is that the labor market for trucker labor isn't in equilibrium.
And if truckers begin to quit, the equilibrium will shift. Do you have any evidence that it will not?
The same is not true for truckers. They don't have specialized skill sets, and their labor is demanded by only a few large firms at most. Search costs are almost nonexistent. This gives employers significant power over them in the labor market.
According to a quick google search, there are about 500,000 trucking companies, 96% of which operate 28 or fewer trucks and 82% of which operate 6 or fewer trucks.
As you note, the search and switching costs are also lower, which makes the market for truckers closer to an ideal free market than the market for programmers. So why do you believe prices will not respond to a shift in the supply curve for truckers?
According to you, truckers are already safer than non-truckers. Isn't that safe enough?
Depends on the marginal cost of saving a life by increasing safety standards. Typically if it's $5 to $10 million/life or less, I'm in favor of it, which is typical for policy decisions in the States.
And if truckers begin to quit, the equilibrium will shift. Do you have any evidence that it will not?
I feel like we're talking past one another. Yes, drivers could quit en masse, which would change prices. But they don't, which is a revealed preference--they prefer driving unsafely and feeding their families to not driving and not feeding their families. The current equilibrium is the reality; what you're looking for is an exogenous shock, while a single person entering or leaving the market is endogenous.
According to a quick google search, there are about 500,000 trucking companies, 96% of which operate 28 or fewer trucks and 82% of which operate 6 or fewer trucks.
From that same site: "It is an estimated over 3.5 million truck drivers in the U.S. Of that one in nine are independent, a majority of which are owner operators."
Just under 400,000 of those 500,000 companies are single truckers who are contractors.
Sheer number of companies isn't a good measure of competitiveness. You've got to look at the full set of and characteristics of employers in a given region. Check out, for instance, Boise, Idaho. http://www.quicktransportsolutions.com/carrier/idaho/boise.p...
It has many companies, but if you look at the distribution of number of trucks operated, there's a very long tail. The median number of trucks operated is 1, but you see a couple that are > 100. Just like you might have hundreds of OSes but an effective monopoly by Microsoft, you've got to look at the actual share of the marketplace.
As you note, the search and switching costs are also lower, which makes the market for truckers closer to an ideal free market than the market for programmers. So why do you believe prices will not respond to a shift in the supply curve for truckers?
It is closer to an efficient market than that for programmers, notwithstanding the caveats I mentioned above. So, yes, prices will respond in a shift in the supply curve for truckers. But you are under the impression that a single person entering or leaving the market shifts the supply curve. That choice is an endogenous in the model--people choose to join or leave the market based on the prevailing price--whereas a shift in the supply curve is exogenous (e.g. related to automation, increased education, mass slaughter of truckers, whatever).
The point is that we're willing to put truckers through harsher and tougher conditions in exchange for cheaper goods. The tradeoff is less safety. It'd be perfectly possible for a company to have truckers drive max 8 hours a day, with 2 hour stretches of driving separated by 15 minutes of rest time. This would be safer for the trucker and for other drivers, but a company that did this would simply be unprofitable unless other companies were, one way or another, mandated to do the same.
If that were true, I'd have a very easy time hiring programmers and artists. Or are the laws of economics somehow different for truckers than for programmers?
This is a slightly muddled understanding of economics. You're acting like the reason things suck now is that the labor market for trucker labor isn't in equilibrium. The issue is that it is, almost by definition. The reason truckers drive at a different level of safety now than in other possible realities is because that's how the market is. To change that you'd have to change the current regulatory regime.
Descriptively speaking, the structure of the labor market in trucking is different than that for programmers. Markets can empirically differ, you know. Engineers have specialized skills and multiple purchasers for their labor. Indeed, in lots of ways an engineer has some level of monopoly power over her employer, due to the non-fungibility of her labor and the search costs.
The same is not true for truckers. They don't have specialized skill sets, and their labor is demanded by only a few large firms at most. Search costs are almost nonexistent. This gives employers significant power over them in the labor market.