Roemer's Law
Version 1.0.0 · Updated 2026-07-30
CORE DEFINITION
"A built hospital bed is a bed that will be filled." The supply of medical services induces demand. If there are empty beds, doctors tend to hospitalize people who do not need to be hospitalized.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
A variant of supply creates its own demand. In resource planning, do not assume that increasing supply will alleviate shortages (e.g., building roads to solve congestion, building hospitals to treat illness). If demand-side standards are not controlled, new resources will be instantly filled by demand with extremely low marginal utility.
Anchor fast decisions
Knowledge and ideas are non-rivalrous; use does not deplete them and they can be combined, leading to increasing returns to scale.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roemer%27s_lawverified
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