Tonaward Late last year, the U.S. began running out of medications for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), including Adderall (an amphetamine) and Ritalin (a central nervous system stimulant). Nine out of 10 pharmacies report shortages of the drug, which tens of millions of Americans use to help improve focus and focus. Around the same time, an interesting thing happened: American productivity (a measure of productivity at work) fell. In the first quarter of 2023, hourly output fell by 3%.
coincide? perhaps. Many other things could explain the drop in productivity. Again, though, many of America’s most productive people rely on Adderall to get work done. Silicon Valley, the most innovative place on earth, seems to be doing half of it.surprising things lead to gross domestic product Ups and downs, including holidays, strikes and weather. What’s more, economic history is clear: Without something to get excited about, the world will remain in an economic dark age.
Of course, not all drug use helps people work better. Don Draper in Mad Men television A series about the advertising executive of the 1960s with an insight into many of his best ideas. But contrary to popular belief, Ernest Hemingway, one of America’s greatest writers, never advised “write while drinking, edit sober,” preferring to write without drinking. In a 1983 book, perhaps the most famous real-life lunatic, David Ogilvy, warned of the dangers of drunks in the office. Cocaine use is common on Wall Street and Hollywood to give people a short-term boost. It can also cause serious long-term problems.
In fact, economists often argue that mood-altering substances are a drag on prosperity. A 2007 estimate put the cost of substance abuse in the United States at $193 billion, or about 1.3 per cent of the cost of substance abuse in the United States. gross domestic productMore recently, economists have studied “deaths of despair,” many of which are linked to opioid misuse. In 2021, more than 80,000 Americans will die from opioid overdose.
But stimulants can also play a positive role. Consider two of them: sugar and coffee. The first makes people work harder; the second makes them work smarter.
Calories were an important constraint on economic growth in the West until the early 18th century. In 1700, Britain’s total food supply per capita was equivalent to about 2,000 calories a day – enough to keep the average person alive, but not much more. Therefore, workers are inefficient. Many poor people who survived on even more meager diets barely had the strength to move, let alone do anything useful.
This changed when sugar imports from the British colonies increased. Per capita sugar consumption rose from about 5 pounds per year in 1700 to 20 pounds in 1800—many times higher than in continental Europe. After 1800, imports soared as the British became fond of sweet tea and cakes. Nobel laureate Robert Fogel noted that switching from a high-fiber diet to a high-sugar diet “increased the proportion of energy consumed, [could] is metabolized”.
Some have observed that more and more Britons are getting fatter. But imports also provide a sweetener to the UK economy. In late 18th-century France, about 10 percent of the population was unable to work due to lack of nutrition. In the UK, by contrast, only the bottom 3% are incapable.England in the 18th century gross domestic product The growth rate is seven times that of France.According to Fogel, “Making the extremely poor into the labor force [and] Increasing the energy available to work in the labor force” explained about a third of Britain’s economic growth in the 19th and 20th centuries.
At the same time, coffee pushed the middle class to do bigger and better things. Northwestern University’s Joel Mokyr underscores the importance of a “culture of growth,” the title of his 2016 book, in explaining European industrialization. During this time, science became less academic and more focused on solving real-world problems. Over time, it became an aide to inventions such as the internal combustion engine, which greatly improved people’s living standards. The coffeehouses known at the time as “Penny University” played a vital role.
By the early 18th century, there were as many as 600 coffee shops in central London. Mr Mokyr pointed to the Marine Coffee House in London as an early location for a series of mathematics lectures. A favorite of Fellows of the Royal Society and intellectual godfathers of the Scientific Revolution, the London Chapter Café gathered to discuss how science could be applied. Caffeine lubricated the discussion in a way that alcohol—a tranquilizer—could not. This chemical increases selective attention (focusing on relevant stimuli) and sustained attention (maintaining attention).
That’s not the only way coffee is fueling growth. In the 18th century, Europe began to rely more on clocks to time economic activity than on the body’s natural rhythms, as was common in agricultural societies. A factory cannot function unless everyone is present at the same time. However, if people now have to wake up at unusual hours, they need something to cheer them up. “Caffeine played an important role in the era of regulation in urban industrialized societies,” said Steven Topik of the University of California, Irvine.
fly high
chronic shortage ADHD Drugs cause real pain to those who need them to work. Fortunately, though, the shortage now appears to be easing. Some pharmacies are finally back stocking drugs, and regulators have removed some drugs from official shortage lists. People in Silicon Valley have been experimenting with other stimulants, such as nootropics, and there is no shortage of them. U.S. productivity appears to be on the rise again. coincide? ■
Read more from our economics column Free Exchange:
Robert Lucas Is a Giant in Macroeconomics (May 18)
New world order seeks to prioritize security and climate change (May 11)
How Japanese policymakers fell into the abyss (May 4)
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