皇家华人

The economics behind my behaviour as a Pret subscriber

by Khushi Kakrania

Being someone who always made coffee at home, buying 6 (拢20/拢3.5) cups of 拢3.5 each to justify the 拢20 subscription isn鈥檛 enough. Since the monetary cost of making my homemade coffee was 拢0.65, I get coffee every day and sometimes more than once if I know I can鈥檛 go the next day. I keep my mental accounts consistent.

While earlier I made 2-3 cups of coffee on a pan, now I consume a larger quantity due to听less effort in getting barista-made coffee from a Pret in almost every street in London. I am听happier because I get utility not only from my consumption but also from a positive departure from my reference point.

Hence, being a time consistent economics student, I pay an immediate high cost to maximize intertemporal benefits minus costs over long time. This convenient arrangement听is very likely to continue as subscription renewal is the default.

Afterglow

by听Jiaxin Shi (Carol)
听

听

听

听

This is a photo taken at Two Temple Place. It depicts the scenario of the sunset in Florence, which is why I name my picture 鈥榓fterglow鈥�.

One obvious element I notice about this picture is transportation. Two ways of travelling are shown: walking and sailing. The development in transportation suggests a high degree of geographical mobility, and hence it boosts commercial transactions and chances of employment.

Another topic here is 鈥榠nequality鈥�. In the bottom of the picture, a couple were pacing home with cows. Here, women can stand together and work with men, which means that gender inequality is relatively eradicated.

But on the other side of the water stood the palaces. The bottom right shows the small houses for citizens. This suggests both the categorial inequality between royalty and ordinary citizenship, and the possible incoming intergenerational inequality of their offspring.
听

Reducing Poverty by Alleviating Asymmetric Information

by听Kexin Wu

听

听

听

This photo shows rice from a rural brand in China in the supermarket. Since the popularization of 鈥渟hopping live shows鈥� (sellers hold living shows on mobile apps to promote products and buyers can buy them with discounts), some areas got out of extreme poverty by successfully promoting their local brands outside. Before that, those regions only could internalize their products or sell them cheaply to other brands. It was also hard for them to establish their brands and compete with established brands because most buyers were uninformed or pessimistic about the actual quality of those rural brands. This problem was like adverse selection and subsidized live shows alleviated this problem of asymmetric information.听

However, excessive promotion of this new marketing strategy and poorly designed regulations can cause some low-quality products to overly advertise themselves through live shows and pretend to be high-quality, which may deteriorate the market efficiency.听
听