But only by granting higher standards of living, which are also a goal of the government.
Not necessarily; the subsidies have to come from somewhere. (I should also point out that I’m making a somewhat technical point, here, and so unless you can sketch the curves involved we may be talking about different things.)
Yeah, we’re talking about very slightly different things—I was ignoring the opportunity cost of the subsidy in my mental model. Whether or not subsidizing an efficiency improvement benefits standard-of-living (compared to alternative uses of that money) depends entirely on the relative cost of that subsidy.
But only by granting higher standards of living, which are also a goal of the government.
Not necessarily; the subsidies have to come from somewhere. (I should also point out that I’m making a somewhat technical point, here, and so unless you can sketch the curves involved we may be talking about different things.)
Yeah, we’re talking about very slightly different things—I was ignoring the opportunity cost of the subsidy in my mental model. Whether or not subsidizing an efficiency improvement benefits standard-of-living (compared to alternative uses of that money) depends entirely on the relative cost of that subsidy.