Economic Tradeoffs, Essay Example

Economics is the study of allocation of limited resources and economic tradeoff is not much different concept. We are forced into an economic tradeoff because while our wants and desires may be unlimited, our financial and time resources are limited. Allocating more resources to one activity or a good/service means we have to give off some from the competing activities or goods/services. Economic tradeoff is also known by another name called opportunity cost.

We make economic tradeoffs both in everyday lives as well as major life events. I allocate more study time to difficult courses instead of equally dividing the time among all subjects. I remember a strategy I devised about two years ago. I had eight courses and I calculated that I have total forty hours per week available for study after taking other daily tasks into account. The average came to about five hours for each course on a daily basis. But two courses are more difficult than other six courses. So I allocated eight hours each to two difficult courses which left me with twenty four hours per week for the rest six courses. Since two courses required more time than the average, I allocated four hours each to other six courses. Similarly, I enjoy playing both American Football and Ping Pong on the weekends but often have to compromise between these two sports due to limited time resources. My parents allow me to allocate four hours to sports/socializing every Sunday. It’s up to me whether I play sports or hang out with friends but I can’t exceed four hours. So I choose to play ping pong when I have movie plans with friends also and opt for American football when I don’t have any social plans. Football is more time-consuming and tiresome while an hour of ping pong is more than enough.

Last summer I did internship at two different places. I could have done fulltime internship at either place but doing so would have meant foregoing the other internship. I wanted to do both because they were quite different and, thus, would have helped me learn a greater variety of skills and knowledge. But it was not possible given the time limitations, thus, I allocated about 60 percent of my work day or about five hours to one internship because it was more challenging and interesting and the rest three hours to the other internship. Even though the second internship paid more on the average despite being the easier one, the first one met my non-financial needs and internship objectives more effectively.

The internship experience also taught me that people make economic tradeoffs in different ways because they have different priorities and needs and their economic tradeoffs reflect the values they put on alternative options.