I think this often isn’t true of tastes either? If I have a strong preference to live in housing near the waterfront, I am better off if this preference is rare so housing near the waterfront costs the same as housing elsewhere, whereas if the preference is common then housing near the waterfront will be much more expensive. (If it’s sufficiently expensive then high-rise apartment buildings will be developed near the waterfront but the rent per square meter will still be higher than elsehwere.) It would be bad for me if a strong preference against living near the waterfront were so common that no housing or infrastructure were built there at all, but it’s best for me if most people are indifferent or merely weakly disprefer it. Similar considerations apply in many other competitive markets.
Can you think of any example which doesn’t have exceptionally low elasticity of supply? I can imagine such a situation for goods with no supply elasticity (ie, land, certain kinds of collectors’ items) but not for the vast majority of goods.
I think low elasticity of supply situations are pretty common, and notably it doesn’t have to be completely inelastic the way waterfront land is. For example if your taste in vacation-destination weather is unusual you can usually get cheaper flights. Flight supply isn’t totally inelastic, many flight routes are seasonal or see more service in summer, but it’s nontheless consistently much cheaper to fly between the US and Europe in February than in August.
I think there are also examples around achieving high job security with low effort by happily doing tasks that your coworkers all strongly prefer not to do, and this can happen even if your employer’s demand for those tasks is somewhat elastic. And in homosexual and bisexual dating contexts with complementary preferences (e.g. top vs bottom), if you prefer bottom you are generally better off if more other people prefer top and vice versa, even if there are enough “vers” people that the “supply” in both directions is fairly elastic.
I think this often isn’t true of tastes either? If I have a strong preference to live in housing near the waterfront, I am better off if this preference is rare so housing near the waterfront costs the same as housing elsewhere, whereas if the preference is common then housing near the waterfront will be much more expensive. (If it’s sufficiently expensive then high-rise apartment buildings will be developed near the waterfront but the rent per square meter will still be higher than elsehwere.) It would be bad for me if a strong preference against living near the waterfront were so common that no housing or infrastructure were built there at all, but it’s best for me if most people are indifferent or merely weakly disprefer it. Similar considerations apply in many other competitive markets.
Can you think of any example which doesn’t have exceptionally low elasticity of supply? I can imagine such a situation for goods with no supply elasticity (ie, land, certain kinds of collectors’ items) but not for the vast majority of goods.
I think low elasticity of supply situations are pretty common, and notably it doesn’t have to be completely inelastic the way waterfront land is. For example if your taste in vacation-destination weather is unusual you can usually get cheaper flights. Flight supply isn’t totally inelastic, many flight routes are seasonal or see more service in summer, but it’s nontheless consistently much cheaper to fly between the US and Europe in February than in August.
I think there are also examples around achieving high job security with low effort by happily doing tasks that your coworkers all strongly prefer not to do, and this can happen even if your employer’s demand for those tasks is somewhat elastic. And in homosexual and bisexual dating contexts with complementary preferences (e.g. top vs bottom), if you prefer bottom you are generally better off if more other people prefer top and vice versa, even if there are enough “vers” people that the “supply” in both directions is fairly elastic.
Good point. However, I think in most such cases the advantage of having more of a market trying to cater to your interests outweighs the extra demand.
Notably, you can’t easily make more waterfront land.