Sunday, April 4, 2010

marginal benefit vs. marginal cost

I was traveling around the east coast interviewing and taking photographs of people for my art project during the spring break, sometimes I had to be at three places in one day. For example, I was interviewing a girl from Yale in New Haven in the morning, a guy from Columbia in New York in the afternoon, and another guy from Bard in Rhinecliff in the evening.

While I was in Boston to get to Mount Holyoke College, I checked all the transportation options, and at last I decided to rent a car ($112.78/day), because even though it was a lot more expensive than public transportation ($59 for LinkPass), the public transportation would have taken me 10 hours, which I could not afford for only two hours' worth of driving.
One of my friends asked me why didn't I take Peterpan which was only $60 for a round trip. I told her that it was not only because that it was 3 hours for a one-way trip, but also because I would have had to stay overnight for the next bus in the morning to take me back. I didn't know I was thinking about marginal benefit vs. marginal cost back then, but subconsciously I chose time over money.

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