"To explain why people allocate time to a particular activity - like unemployment - we need to know why they prefer it to all other activities."-- Robert Lucas, , Basil Blackwell (1987): 54Yes, why do people choose to be without a job?
(The title of this post is an allusion to a joke from Robert Solow.)
To be unemployed is to not simply to be without a job but to be without a job and seeking one at its market rate of pay.
ReplyDeleteThis is just something that should probably be said at some point, so here it is (it's sort of been itching me ever since I first read that Solow remark): Austerlitz was decided on the point of the bayonet, specifically, Soult's assault at the weakened center.
ReplyDeleteWhich means it was infantry tactics that mattered. Cavalry, in this particular battle, conducted mop up operations (and maybe the final coup de grace).
I'm not sure what implications this has for the analogy/joke/remark/metaphor.
We need to understand why people sometimes pass on job offers and why they are usually reluctant to change fields. -- I hope I'm not the only one who turned down a job offer just so that I can look/wait for something better.
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