On the Margin

Here’s an excellent podcast from Russ Roberts of EconTalk:  Munger on Shortages, Prices and Competition.

Listen to it.   This covers a gamut of topics:   Vaccines, minimum wage, organ donation, airline deregulation.  Roberts and Munger do a great job of explaining factors other than price that we use to allocate our resources on the margin everyday and don’t realize it.

For example:  FREE VACCINE!!! Great. We’ll all get it.  Right?  Nope.  Why not?  It’s still not worth it to many because there are “costs” involved.  Time waiting in line, getting there, having a chance to catch the illness while waiting in line to name a few.

I’m listening to the podcast for the second time as I write this.