How do you value a strawberry?
Welcome! In this post, I thought I would explore some of the economic concepts around value. This post is merely the first of many as I begin to explore different economic concepts and provide some examples to help bring theoretical economics into the practical everyday world, hopefully in some fun and creative ways. First, I would like to address the difference between accounting value and economic value. Most of us will be familiar with accounting value as we encounter it every time we purchase something, which is price. Price is a dollar value representing what it cost to market a good plus some profit (hopefully!). Economic value, however, is more complex and considers the more non-tangible costs like economic opportunity costs (what had to be given up to gain something else), personal value, and social value. The difference means that while Economists have great respect for money in/money out, they recognize that value goes deeper than just direct costs and includes ele...