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** Opportunity cost is a way of measuring your decisions: if I do this, would having done something else been more or less expensive? What did I give up in my decision? | ** Opportunity cost is a way of measuring your decisions: if I do this, would having done something else been more or less expensive? What did I give up in my decision? | ||
* Frederic Bastiat developed the "Parable of the broken window" to express the concept | * Frederic Bastiat developed the "Parable of the broken window" to express the concept | ||
** known as the "Broken Window Fallacy*" or the "Glazier's Fallacy" | |||
*** (* not to be confused with "Broken Windows Theory") | |||
** from his essay, "''Ce qu'on voit et ce qu'on ne voit pas"'' ("What is seen and what is not seen") | ** from his essay, "''Ce qu'on voit et ce qu'on ne voit pas"'' ("What is seen and what is not seen") | ||
** the parable discusses the "unseen" costs of fixing a broken window | ** the parable discusses the "unseen" costs of fixing a broken window | ||
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*** wars (spur economic activity and mobilization) | *** wars (spur economic activity and mobilization) | ||
*** however, whatever the benefit it does not account for Bastiat's "unseen" costs and cannot in any way outweigh the suffering, death and loss of choice created by the disaster or war | *** however, whatever the benefit it does not account for Bastiat's "unseen" costs and cannot in any way outweigh the suffering, death and loss of choice created by the disaster or war | ||
* see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window#Parable | |||
</div> | </div> | ||
* Examples: | * Examples: | ||
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* Public goods | * Public goods | ||
* Rent-seeking | * Rent-seeking | ||
** using government rules or law in order to reduce competition | |||
** see Frederic Bastiat's "Economic Sophisms" for a satire on candlestick makers who petitioned the government to ban the sun as an unfair competitor' | |||
*** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Bastiat#Economic_Sophisms_and_the_candlemakers'_petition | |||
* Broken window fallacy (also "Glazier's fallacy) | |||
** see Frederic Bastiat's ""Ce qu'on voit et ce qu'on ne voit pas" ("That Which We See and That Which We Do Not See"): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window | |||
* Client politics | * Client politics | ||
* Regulatory capture | * Regulatory capture |