Article Review: Response to the Economics is Everywhere

The decisions that people make result from in-depth analysis of different situations. Time is a crucial factor in the production process; as a result, microeconomics choices depend on the time factor. Also, technology contributes significantly to the production process and service delivery in various sectors of the economy. Human wants are unlimited but the resources needed to satisfy these wants are limited. Therefore, as part of day-to-day life experience, appropriate choices result from keen considerations of the needs, the available resources, and the time factor. Hamermesh presents decision making situations through the Vignette in his book Economics is Everywhere in a precise manner. This paper responds to the two cases described in the text that is case 1.9 and case 1.15. The first case covers a scenario of production possibility frontier whereas the latter encompasses opportunity cost.

In the first case (case 1.9), the automatic check reader machine proves beneficial in the services delivery and consequently in the production process (Hamermesh, 2011). This technology is of great importance to the banking industry. Banks ordinarily are involved in daily transactions either in cash or checks. The automatic check reader technology benefits the banks in detecting fraudulent check transaction as information regarding account details are instantly accessed and approved. Through this method, banks save the amount of money spent in solving legal cases with customers in line with check transactions. Another industry that this innovation is beneficial to in the e-commerce. E-commerce involves the business transactions that take place through the internet. Service providers meet their clients in an online platform from where transactions completed. The automatic check detection is helpful for the sellers as prevents loss of checks as well as the trips the merchants make to banks to complete the transactions. This automatically aids the deduction of the service charges from customers account before the actual delivery of goods or services.

The second case is case 1.15 that involves the concept of opportunity cost (Hamermesh, 2011). During the party, the slow-moving queue leading to the ice cream booth relates to the time factor verses the monetary value of an item. The students at the university are attracted to the ice cream booth because it was offered for free. From the case explanations, the narrator decided to abandon the queue as the time length to get the service could not match the benefits that could result from another opportunity elsewhere. However, the other students could not estimate the time value in comparison to the actual monetary value of the ice cream that was offered during the party. Also, the company from their colleagues influenced their patience while in the queue. The key objective of the students at this particular time was to satisfy their basic need (food) from the free ice creams availed to them in the booth. Therefore, the students could patiently wait in the line to be served the ice cream compared to the narrator who had equated the value of the ice cream and opportunity cost. The behavior of the students is linked to the shorter and sooner opportunity cost instead of larger but later alternative due to the party environment. All these explain why the students could patiently wait to get ice cream from the booth despite the fact that the process consumed much time.

Reference

Hamermesh, D. S. (2011). Economics is Everywhere. New York, Worth Publishers.