ABSTRACT
Since we’d prefer to prevent lost productivity, we need to understand the specific mechanisms through which it is lost. This chapter describes many of them. These mechanisms reflect lost opportunities rather than directly quantifiable numbers. The magnitude of the losses is important to understand so that we can see the extent to which productivity is hurt by common policies. We might imagine that it could be significant, but how significant is impossible to understand before it happens. The precise magnitude of these losses isn’t really important; they can’t be quantified precisely anyway.
