Outline: This article talked about the interesting dorm location exchanges in Duke University. Student groups trade with each other for better dorms. However, when the exchange involves money, the school warned the student not to do so while they claim: we encourage trade, but no monetary exchange.
Economic concept: rationing, the advantage of price system
Three Rhetorical Questions:
i. If money is prohibited, what else will be the medium of exchange?
ii. Why would the University prohibit monetary exchange?
iii. Who benefits from the prohibition of monetary exchange?
My opinion: The announcement of Duke University is just ridiculous. Voluntary money system is the best way to allocate scarce resources. Simply emphasizing on "Fairness" will never change anything about the scarcity of good dorms. If money exchange is prohibited, there'll surely be other mechanisms allocating scarce dorms. What's more, consider the fact that this new mechanism can be physical force, or even black market，the outcome of these allocation can be much more inefficient than that under free market.
No comments:
Post a Comment