Tag: inefficiency

Categories
Supply & Demand

Rationing During a Blizzard

A blizzard hits the St. Louis area and customers are lined up to purchase items they now need. Garrett announces that the store has decided to ration all types of water rather than raise prices in an attempt to prevent people from hoarding water. Another alternative allocation mechanism would be to raise prices, but they have opted instead for an authoritarian approach. As Garrett names the different products under rationing, we also get a list of substitute products which shows the range of product differentiation at the store.

Categories
Consumer Choice & Behavioral

Gifts from the Registry

Jonah sets up a baby registry to help Amy afford some of the things she’ll need for her newborn. Her coworkers are mad they weren’t invited to the fake baby shower, so the store throws Amy (and others) a baby shower. After getting through the gift portion, Amy thanks everyone for the gifts, but notes that some of the gifts she received were garbage. Only the car seat was a gift that she actually wanted and was the purpose of setting up the baby registry. Gift giving is often considered inefficient because people don’t fully know what the other person’s willingness to pay is for an item. Had Amy been given cash, she could have purchased items that she valued.

Categories
Consumer Choice & Behavioral

Inefficiency of Wrapping Gifts

After being assigned to wrap gifts for customers, we learn that Garrett doesn’t actually no how to this. He tries to hide this by making an economic argument that wrapping gifts is inefficient since it just wastes time in the transaction process.

Categories
Principles

A customer is checking out at the pharmacy, but asks Tate if he can ring up just a few more items. Even though is main job is a pharmacist, he obliges the customer. With a long line behind the customer, Tate recognizes that his Doctorate of Pharmacy is probably better spent helping his customers with medical needs rather than helping the customer avoid another line at the front of the store.