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Induced demand is just the name for realized latent demand, your more precise way to think about it is the concept*. It's only muddled because it is often invok
by enragedcacti 2y ago
Induced demand is just the name for realized latent demand, your more precise way to think about it is the concept*. It's only muddled because it is often invoked in complex markets where the costs are often not monetary, there are substantial externalities to consider, or the supply is centrally managed.
Should a city spend $500,000 to install lighting in the park downtown? After all nobody uses it at night because its too dangerous! Induced demand is central to the answer but isn't a first thought for many because the problem space doesn't look like a traditional market.
* there is the additional concept that the long term availability of a good or service at a lower cost changes consumer behavior in a durable way. Building a new train station realizes latent demand but also creates new demand as it causes denser housing to be constructed near it**.
** Whether you want to model that as just more realized latent demand or as a consequence that's technically distinct from induced demand is IMO where a lot of the confusion comes from. If you ask me this should probably have a distinct name as it is a long-term, interrelated process that doesn't map well to sliding around supply and demand curves. Generated demand is what Bloomberg calls it but that has insane overlap with a marketing technique.
- BenFranklin100 2y agoThanks, very interesting. The term ‘induced demand’ has been used a lot in the urban transit & housing discourse. Occasionally you will see the term hijacked by NIMBYs who argue against new housing by claiming construction only serves to create more demand for housing. Or people will argue against widening highways because it will only and always just create ‘induced demand’. A more precise way of thinking about the problem is that a market will pay up to Y amount of time to get from point A to point B. It may be impossible to meet the total demand in this market at time Y with low-efficiency car transit, but a mass transit train system could saturate and address the entire market demand at price point time Y. That is, thinking more precisely about the problem can help inform policy choices.