Almost every college student must buy a “Blue Book” to take an exam at some point in their college career. Recently we had to purchase one for our midterm in Public Choice. These books are extremely cheap, costing approximately one dollar at any university convenience store. I went to Corner Grocery on Main St to get mine where they cost 99 cents per book. When I arrived at Corner Grocery I was very interested to see a pile of “Green Books” next to the pile of Blue Books, and this Green Book also cost 99 cents. These Green books are each made with 30% post-consumer recycled product, compared to Blue Book’s 0%.
When I saw the two books in front of me, my economic mind began to race. I remembered that Professor Coppock said that he preferred Blue Books because blue is his favorite color. Blue is also my favorite color--my backpack is blue, I have many blue shirts, and overall I just appreciate the color blue more than other colors. But at the same time, I worried about the negative consumption externality I may be placing on society with the purchase of the Blue Book. If I actively chose to purchase the Blue Book instead of the Green book, then I was consuming 30% more non-recycled paper than I would be if I purchased the Green Book. Another cost I had to consider was whether my exam grade would truly be affected by my choice of Green Book over Blue Book, and I assumed given Professor Coppock’s fair and principled teaching approach in the classroom, that he would not penalize me for wanting to be environmentally conscious. Upon analyzing and predicting these costs I decided to purchase the Green Book. While this application of negative externality analysis may seem a bit silly and exaggerated, I do wonder why Corner Grocery would be selling Blue Books at all. On Amazon, a case of Blue Books costs the same price as a case of Green Books, so I sort of think Corner Grocery would produce positive consumption externalities if they choose to only purchase and sell Green Books at all. Maybe I should contact the managers...
1 comment:
While I agree with you that Corner Grocery would produce positive consumption externalities if they choose to only purchase and sell Green Books, I think that they would lose some business in doing so. I remember the first time I had to use an exam booklet at UVA first year. My professor announced that we should purchase a "Blue Book". Unlike Professor Coppock, I do not think that this professor had an aesthetic reasoning for requesting blue, rather "Blue Book" was simply mainstream. This is much like how Uber dominates 69% of the rideshare market in the US , even though Lyft has the exact same business model and product. “Call an Uber” has become the mainstream phrase for calling a rideshare service, just as “go get a Blue Book” has become the mainstream phrase for buying an exam booklet. I distinctly remember being confused when I walked into the exam room and saw that a couple students had bought other color books; I thought this was not allowed. If Corner Grocery stopped selling Blue Books to reap the environmental benefits, they would lose the business not only of the students and professors who like the aesthetic appeal of Blue Books, but also of those poor, confused first year students like I once was simply attempting to follow the rules.
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