The economics of snow removal

One of the earliest principles of economics that I learned in Econ 101 is the idea of “comparative advantage.”

This idea holds that if someone else can do something more efficiently than you can, it makes economic sense for you to pay them to do it.

I recently decided to hire a snow removal service to plow our driveway. They charge $40 and it takes them about 20 minutes to do the work.

Normally I would be reluctant to pay someone to plow my driveway. After all, I’m young, I’m in good health – I’m perfectly capable of shoveling my own snow. (We don’t have a snowblower – although we should probably get one, since our driveway is the size of an aircraft carrier.)

But these are not “normal” times. I have a lot of demands on my time right now. I’m trying to balance a full-time job, raising a family, while at the same time trying to start my own business. So for this exact juncture in my life, it makes economic sense for me to pay someone to do snow removal for us.

It would have taken me three hours to shovel that entire driveway. (And it was really cold that day – subzero windchill.) Assuming I can earn at least $50 an hour, I could earn $150 in the time it would have taken to do a job that someone else can do more efficiently for $40.

This is economics at work. It’s not always such a “dismal” science.

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