Dear Economist,
I am 17 years old and studying A-level economics. A lot of my friends are getting into serious relationships and I’d like to get a girlfriend myself, but I am also concerned about getting distracted from my studies. How does the cost-benefit analysis work out?
Ben, Buckinghamshire
Answer at ft.com, subscription free.
I work as an escort in Canary Wharf. I wonder if you might have some sound business advice on how workers in my industry should tackle the sudden drop in demand following the collapse of Lehman Brothers?
Miss C
Shortly after the Soviet Union collapsed, a Russian bureaucrat travelled to the west to seek advice on how the market system functioned. He asked the economist Paul Seabright to explain who was in charge of the supply of bread to London. He was astonished by the answer: “Nobody.”
Fifteen years later, I had thought that almost everyone had abandoned the notion that a committee could plan its way through the unimaginable complexities of an advanced economy. I was wrong...
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