During the fall of 2013, I took MATH 215: Introduction to Statistics.  At the end of the term, two other teammates and I did our final project evaluating where the best place would be to buy your textbook: the Carleton Bookstore, Amazon, or eBay.  To do this, we obtained the list of available textbooks in the Carleton Bookstore and randomly chose a select number of books to then cross-reference prices in these three specific retailers.  Besides these booksellers, we looked at the difference between new and old books as well as the difference between hard science and mathematics textbooks, and humanities and social science books.  We can say with 95% confidence that the Carleton Bookstore is more expensive than Amazon and eBay both in the new and used market and eBay is more expensive than Amazon in the used market. As for science and mathematics textbooks, we can say with 95% confidence that in all retailers, both new and used, science and mathematics textbooks are overwhelmingly and significantly more expensive than humanities and social science textbooks.

Given on our statistical conclusion based solely on prices, I was interested to look at this information through an economic lens, specifically in terms of opportunity costs for the buyer.  When buying through the Carleton Bookstore, the buyer may find it easier to buy their books at the bookstore because the bookstore has a good quantity of books (supply) and they are located at the heart of campus.  This means that the implicit costs of time and energy are lower whereas, according to my final project, for both the new and used books, the Carleton Bookstore overcharges, meaning higher explicit costs.  In contrast, with buying books online in general, it could be argued that there are more implicit costs with searching for a long time to find the book online as well as the waiting time before the book arrives.  With this, there are lower explicit costs as the new and used books are cheaper (lower explicit costs).  That being said and the Carleton Bookstore aside, when comparing online purchases of used books, eBay has higher explicit costs than Amazon.  Additionally, in terms of the condition of the books themselves, the Carleton Bookstore would have a higher quality of books whereas the quality of books from vendors online is more questionable; this could add to the implicit costs of buying on either Amazon or eBay.

So, what conclusion do we draw from this?  Based only on explicit costs, the buyer would be better off to buy books from Amazon and eBay, but, based on the opportunity costs (implicit costs), it would be perhaps better to buy books from the Carleton Bookstore.  I think it is difficult to determine which option is better because it really depends on how the buyer weighs the importance of the implicit and explicit costs.  So, when you need to buy a Shakespearean play or an Organic Chemistry textbook for this classes this fall, be sure to think about not only the explicit costs, but also the implicit costs that come with buying books from the Carleton Bookstore, Amazon, eBay, or anywhere else.

On USATODAY’s website, Paul Davidson wrote an article last week, entitled, More states, cities raising minimum wage.  Recently more and more fast-food workers paid hourly wages have rallied for a raise in minimum wage across the United States.  With the gap between the upper and lower classes only rising throughout the world, a change like increasing the minimum wage would reduce such a wide gap.  President Obama seems to be in favor of this change and supports a bill that plans to raise the federal minimum hourly wage from the current $7.25 to $10.10 in the next two years.  Federal wage aside, ten states have already passed similar increases with more talks of increasing rates in more than thirty other states.  Even cities have put this idea into motion; urban centers such as San Francisco, Santa Fe, San Jose, Washington D.C. have already increased their minimum wage to $10.10.

People in favor of this increase argue that it will help low-wage industries like restaurants and retail stores which accounted for 22% of jobs lost and 44% of the jobs added since the recession.  This seemingly large raise to the minimum wage will increase the pay for 28 million workers as well as add a $22 billion into the economy (because, Cooper argues, low-wage workers spend much more of their paycheck than high wage workers).

Michael Saltsman, research director for the Employment Policies Institute, argues that if minimum wage increases by almost three dollars, then businesses would have to lay off workers or hire less people.  This likely means that fast-food franchises could replace their workers with devices, like touch-screen ordering systems, reducing the need for workers.  Because fast-food franchises would rather charge less for their products, by “boosting the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour would lift 900,000 Americans out of poverty, but [also] reduce employment by about 500,000 workers.”

As Davidson’s article shows, labor wages has been a particularly heated discussion in the United States since the recession.  With the increase in minimum wage, the indifference curve for labor wages would shift upward with the equilibrium point increasing from $7.25 to $10.10 on the y-axis (wages per hour).  Unlike many other goods, the substitution and income effects, which usually work together, would contradict one another in this instance.  In the lower half below the equilibrium point, the substitution effect dominates which states that the worker should work more hours because now leisure time has become more expensive.  In the higher half above the equilibrium point, the income effect dominates which states that the worker should work less because they are better off than before and are able to buy more things, like leisure.  By increasing the minimum wage, there will be less of a need to have more workers.  It is uncertain until it happens, but this increase could cause the workers to work less because they can afford it, which may actually prevent them from earning much more money than they already do without the minimum wage increase.  Because the low-wage workers’ earnings are less, the $22 billion dollars economists hope will be fed into the economy will be lower than expected.  So, is an increase in minimum wage really worth it for the economy?  I don’t really have an answer just yet…  But, come 2016, I am very curious to see how the raise in minimum wage will actually affect the American economy and where the country will go from there.

In the article on Freakonomics’ blog entitled, Testing the Limits of Google Translate, Steven D. Levitt discusses his fascination with the Google Translate’s ability to “instantaneously (if imperfectly) translated.”  Because Levitt cannot speak any other language but English, he claims that Google Translate seems like a miracle, but it in fact has its limits.  He recounts his recent experience in Germany when he tried to translate “I had a nice time with you” with Google Translate; it actually translated to “I had a mice time with you,” which made his host (who spoke nearly no English) to become very confused.  Levitt has now understandably resolved to be more careful with his use of Google Translate.

As a Spanish major, I have had a number of experiences with online translators and dictionaries, especially through the comps process this past year.  I have had experiences similar to that of Levitt, but also have had helpful experiences too.  I have found that Google Translate helps with one or two word phases, but is less successful with complicated diction.

In contrast to my generally positive experience translating a romance language, a commenter, namely YX, explains that Google Translate is particularly bad at translating any East Asian language and that Bing is better for this function.  With the many students and travelers around the world with Internet access, there is an overwhelming demand for the possibility of rapid translation in this fast world.  To respond, there are many online translators (granted, with varying levels of accuracy).  Translators besides Google Translate and Bing, like Babylon, Babelfish, Reverso, etc. in this case can be considered substitutes in terms of their translating services, excluding their precision.  With all these online translators, it is difficult as a consumer to figure out which work the best without comparing and contrasting the results.

For this reason, although the opportunity costs of using an online translator may initially seem low because of the speed at which it can produce the translation, the opportunity costs end up being much higher because, like Levitt experienced, it actually takes a longer time to figure out what to do with the inevitable confusion from the produced translation.  At the same time, the opportunity costs however still remain lower with online translators than seeking out a language tutor.

So, to anyone interested in learning a new language at any point in his or her life, I would still suggest the use of online translators for a certain list of tasks with its low opportunity costs and generally acceptable translations.