8. Economics at Work: Watching Entire Industries Lose It

“We’re losing a little on every sale but making it up on volume.”

—Anonymous

Economics works. I was not sure I believed that the first time I took an economics course as an undergraduate many years ago because I did not have the experience to relate to the principles being illustrated by curves and equations. But eventually one realizes that there are real relationships between business reality and terms like market structure, indifference curves, marginal rates of substitution, production functions, price elasticity, income elasticity, supply and demand curves, equilibrium price, and so on. I believe, more than ever, that the principles are real and that they affect real businesses ...

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