Think Like An Economist Essay

Roger Arnold 's book How to think like an Economist has been a great help in understanding economics. Learning how to think as an economist has been quite interesting. The book made me realize that economics affects nearly every part of my life, something I really had not thought about. When thinking about this paper, I decided to share three areas of my life that involve interesting economic principles. These areas are my job, my car, and my hobby which is collecting books.

There are a number of economic factors related to my job including supply and demand. I work as and truck unloader at Walmart, which pays very low wages. One reason for the low pay is a Law of Supply and Demand. There is a large supply of people with no college degree or specialized …show more content…
This requires me to balance these two goals and consider the opportunity costs of working. Opportunity costs are what one gives up in order to do something. I need to make enough money to cover my costs and want enough money to cover the occasional extra expense. However, if I want to do well in school, I need enough time to study. My opportunity cost for working is less time to study. Therefore, I need to carefully consider what cost I am willing to pay in terms of spending less time studying to spend more time working. Once I have acquired my degree, I want to be an English teacher, and I thought that as a high school teacher I would be better off. Now I realize that economically I would not be better off. I would have a higher salary and a more interesting job. However, I would have more responsibilities, since I would be trusted to teach and help a number of young people. I would likely have papers to check, assignments to grade and other work to do at home instead of being free to do as I please after work like I am at Walmart. Working as a truck unloader or a high school English teacher both have their