ECON 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Opportunity Cost, Air Purifier
Document Summary
We have found that people have to make choices because there is scarcity. In other words, because our apparently limitless desire is to press up against finite resources, some desire must go unfulfilled. Therefore we have to pick which ones we want to fulfill and which we do not like. If an option is made the most coveted incentive or alternative forfeited is known as opportunity cost. If you make a decision, you pay the expense of an opportunity. You have opted to read this part, for example. You"ve denied yourself the benefits of doing something else while making this decision. Could"ve been watching tv, emailing a friend, taking a nap, eating a few slices of pizza, reading a book, shopping for a new computer and so on. Economists think a shift in the cost of opportunity will affect the behavior of an individual. Think of ryan, for example, who is a sophomore at cornell university in ithaca,
