Not exactly in a good mood today, had some problems with my school presentation and was thinking about other unhappy stuff. On my way back home from NTU, I was trying to prove the statement that I was being abandoned by 'A'. But to prove to prove this, i needed to define what is abandon? At first I though of being physically abandon, meaning not meeting each other again. But when 2 people still consider for each other but are not physically together, they do not consider themselves abandoned. Hence my concluding definition of abandon was to be forgotten, removed from the heart and mind.

But if I used this definition, it meant that I wasn't abandoned by 'A' and I couldn't explain how come that decision was made by 'A'. Since 'A' said we were more important to her than 'B'. However, the fact that 'A' choose 'B' over us did not prove her statement. At this point, I was getting rather confused as I wasn't able to understand 'A''s decision. She didn't abandon us but she still choose 'B'.

Then suddenly a thought came to my mind, using The Consumer Choice Model to explain this.For those who do not study Economics, Consumer choice model shows how consumers make decisions about how much of a product to buy. The idea is that a consumer maximizes his or her utility(satisfaction), subject to the constraints imposed by product prices and the consumer's income. To illustrate this, below is the model who often use in school.



So whatever 'A' did when she made the decision was to maximise her utility. In normal circumstances, she would have chosen us. However due to some change in the circumstances. 'A''s budget line shifted out. For example, school gave her the money but the condition was that she can only spend it with 'B'. Hence, to max her utility, she will choose the point on the higher Utility curve, U2, which is tangent to the new budget line meaning she would spend more time and money with Us at point C. However, because of the restriction that she can only get the $ if she spend it with 'B', that is why she have to choose point B and derive a lower utility curve (U1). Hence that explains why 'A' spend more time and money with 'B' than Us. although she would have derive more utility with Us under normal circumstances.

I think many of you reading wouldn't understand what I am talking about if you don't know the model well enough. I am writing this down because I find it so interesting that Economics helps me understand daily life decision making too :) Economics isn't really all about figures, it is just a way of understanding how people behave, just like psychology or sociology but with model and calculations incorporated to make it more quantitative than the other social sciences. Sp are you more interested in Economics now? Probably not, I guess. Its been hard trying to get people to join Economics Society and I understand that what I think is interesting, others may find it a bit crappy. Well, I am weird, but I am happy to be so.