Will there ever be equality in studying? Is it true that when a student works harder than another, they will score higher? Let's look at some prospects of studying - the economics way!

If you are a student who studies 24/7 (note that time is our factor), your opportunity cost would be your social life. That would seem true, unless you ration the time for your studies and your extra-curricular life. This is only theoretically speaking, because you are only looking at two variables, studying and social life. In practical terms, you have externalities such as having meals, babysitting your crybaby sister etc. So are economic theories ever applicable in our daily lives?

Let's look at it from my point of view. Say I am the government, and I am under a centrally-planned economy, where there is maximum government intervention. It's true, in life, you are the decision maker, the others are merely helping you out. However, I do have to admit, we were probably controlled not by ourselves, but by our parents when we were younger. Now that you are older, you are the one controlling and determining your life.

Let's get back to the centrally-planned economy concept. Say, I have tried being in a centrally-planned economy, where there is very minimal intervention by the private sectors. The private sectors are the other people in my life. I might choose to do a transition in economy due to several factors such as economic recession (low grades and self-destruction etc). Now I might want to be a mixed economy instead. Where I open up my economy to the private sectors (guidance from teachers and peers), I hope to see great results in my economy (exam results). Will I achieve economic growth? Will I be able to achieve most of the government macroeconomic aims, if not all?

How do I achieve this transition? Firstly, as a government, I must implement supply-side policies (to increase supply of information getting into my brain). How? By providing subsidies (self-studying and attending classes, always seeking further information from teachers). If you look at it through the aggregate supply and aggregate demand analysis, here is what we would typically see in an economist's eye.



The output increases, and price index decreases. If we revert back to our case study, we could interpret that if we focus on the supply side policy, we could produce more at a lower price. Which means that, theoretically, we might be able to attain a higher output, which leads to higher productivity, and at the same time doing this with a lower price. It means that, we do not have to allocate so much time to study repetitively, lower opportunity cost in our social life, as mentioned previously, if we spend more time improving the quality of knowledge that we already know by further reading, being attentive in class and doing the homework given by the teachers. In short, we are mainly prioritizing quality instead of quantity.

TLDR: I discussed on the opportunity cost of studying multiple hours, the transitional economies from centrally-planned to mixed economy and how implementing supply-side policies can help us out in solving the problem of our high opportunity cost of social life.


In conclusion, there are many effective ways of studying, it is just a matter of time whether you realise it earlier or a tad bit late. I am merely expressing an opinion from a (future) economist's eye, and this theory is perfectly unreliable as I do not have sufficient information. These concepts are only on the surface, as I have only learnt the A-Level syllabus. Feel free to comment/PM/email me to discuss more about this. I think you're only able to comment on my blog if you are viewing my blog on mobile.

Cheers and have a pleasant evening.