Inventions : A dime a dozen

Although someone comes up with a new idea that seems to be great, it is not valuable until that the innovation appears. In other words, invention can mean nothing without the idea itself. For example, the incandescent lightbulb was originally invented in 1802. However, it took more than 75 years that people can get real benefit from the lightbulb. Thanks to Thomas Edison with the considerable technical and commercial talents, the lightbulb can implement a practical application, which allows people to do activities like a daytime. Even then, the widespread diffusion of the lightbulb took additional decades-and has not yet occurred in many locations around the world. Accordingly, the inventions are "a dime a dozen" because the invention itself has difficulty to making an effect.

Unlimited wants and limited resources - depending on income

I think “unlimited wants and limited resources” is regardless of how much income each household has. It is true that nobody can have enough resource of allowing to have  everything including time and money to satisfy their every desire. In detail, the each month budget would be different depending how much income the household has and each household has different wants based on the circumstance. From this point of view, wants is unlimited whereas the resources is limited all the time. Therefore, the phrase “unlimited wants and limited resources” can apply to all types of households.

Rationality assumption and bounded rationality assupmtion

In the rationality assumption, people would make a decision in order to avoid being worse off in that they know what would give them a penalty. On the other hand, it would be hard to prevent themselves from leaving the things that make them worse off. The information they have, the cognitive limitation, and the amount of time are limited. Instead, people use simple rules of thumb in making economic decisions.

Minimum wage - should it be raised, lowered or remain the same?

The rise of the current minimum wage is supported by the positive analysis in that the rise would be connected to the improvement of the quality of life. Also, increased wages would help a lot of people to satisfy somewhat their unlimited wants.

However, according to the perspective of the normative analysis, rising the current minimum wage would cause the negative effects on the employers, employees, and economy overall in the long term. First of all, job opportunity would be decreased with the reason that the employers do not want to increase their spending by hiring many employees. Under such a condition, the employers will find a way to minimize their monetary loss. The circumstance is unfortunately connected to the job market in which unskilled employees cannot find their jobs. For employers, it would be a better option to offer extra pay to the skilled employees about taking more job tasks. In addition, in order to complement the loss caused by the increased minimum wage, the employers would try to increase the price of the products. Those situations would finally bring out the negative growth of the economy. Therefore, I do not support to increase the minimum wage.

Open Access or Closed Access

                                                                                       (Astoria Park in NYC)

I love~~~ park!

Whenever I have free time, I usually go to park to walk!!
Maybe many people would like to spend their time in the park.
For me, I can forget what is bothering me;
I feel like that my stress is relived~

Thus, I always think how it is fortunate that we don't need anything to enter the park!

However, if the park becomes closed access, what situation will happen?

Today, I would like to mention "Open access and Closed access".


For about every property, we can classify then open access and closed access.

Open access : There is nothing required!
Closed access : Something is required to enter.

For example, suppose that there is a free concert but we need the free ticket to get into the hall.
In this time, the concert hall is not open access but closed access because only people who have the free ticket can get into the hall.

Supply and demand question

Q. In recent years, technological improvements have greatly reduced the costs of producing basic cell phones, and a number of firms have entered the cell phone industry. At the same time, prices of substitutes for cell phones, such as smartphones and some tablet devices, have declined considerably. Construct a supply and demand diagram of the market for cell phones. Illustrate the impacts of these developments, and evaluate the effects on the market price and equilibrium quantity.

As one of the determinants of supply, the development of the technology in producing basic cell phones would cause the supply curve to shift leftward. It is because manufactures would make more cell phones with a cheaper cost in producing cell phones. As the opposite of the change of the supply, the demand curve would shift rightward, which means that the demand of the cell phones decreased. Also, it is expected that people would like to prefer purchasing the substitutes for cell phones such as smartphones and some tablet devices since they are offered with the cheaper price than cell phones.

From this point, it can be said that the market price decreased from E1 to E2 as the graph above mentioned. When it comes to the equilibrium quantity, its change cannot be determined or seen without more information. The increased demand tends to raise the equilibrium quantity, whereas the decreased supply tends to reduce the equilibrium quantity.

Opportunity cost - concert example

Q. You and a friend decide to spend $100 each on concert tickets. Each of you alternatively could have spent the $100 to purchase a textbook, a meal at a highly rated local restaurant, or several Internet movie downloads. As you are on the way to the concert, your friend tells you that if she had not bought the concert ticket, she would have opted for a restaurant meal, and you reply that you otherwise would have downloaded several movies. Identify the relevant opportunity costs for you and your friend of the concert tickets that you purchased. Explain briefly.

Both of us have the same amount of resource: $100 each. If we decide not to purchase the concert ticket and choose the secondary best alternative respectively, each has different opportunity cost. For me, the opportunity cost is downlading internet movies with $100. In case of my friend, her opportunity cost is having a meal at a highly rated local restuarant with $100.