When shopping in supermarkets, you usually get stuck in the check-out line. Usually people look for lines that are shorter than others for faster transaction. But I learned from our economics class that it is better to get into the nearest line than to look for a shorter line because it is all the same. It has something to do with people being rational so those shoppers in the different lines before you are already equalizing the length of lines and if by chance there is a shorter line but people are not filling it up then they must know something that you do not know, like the cashier is slow or something is wrong with that cashier’s POS system, it’s not working properly. So next time I go grocery shopping, I will just get into the nearest line and not try to lug my groceries around looking for a shorter queue.
In our policy analysis subject, the professor cited asymmetry of information as one of the reasons why markets fail. This is where one party has more information about a good’s attributes than the other, and one cannot observe a good’s attribute until one chooses to consume it. Consumers are usually affected by this because unless we try a product, we do not really know if it is good or not, effective or ineffective. But this is also true for sellers of products like insurance because they do not really know how long you will actually live. What they have are probabilities that a person of this age range will live up to a certain number of years. That is why insurance quotes without personal information required are not so common since agents have to know some basic information about you to give you an appropriate quote. Information is really important for both buyers and sellers for the less likely failure of the market.
Damo o Bulaklak?
(Weed or Flower?)
When you go to school, one of the things you cannot avoid are the textbooks. I am so grateful that we have a separate stipend for textbooks because these really eat away at our budget. It is best to read the textbooks aside from just listening to the teacher discuss the lessons. Sometimes there are some points in the discussion that are hard to understand but when it is supplemented by readings, things become clearer and more understandable. It’s really hard being a student once again. It is back to sleepless nights and getting anxious over quizzes, assignments, and reports, etc. But it is also back to having fun and getting crazy with classmates and student camaraderie. I guess the pros balance the cons well enough.
