The Economics of Warcraft

Now is a good time own shares of copper, tin and other common industrial metals. No, not in real life, silly... in World of Warcraft. Apparently the Ahn'Qiraj quest line has raised the demand for common wholesale materials, raising the prices on Auction Houses from Ironforge to Everlook.

You could ...

Whine about rising prices of raw materials for manufacturers:

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"The economy is totally upside down right now. 20 linen went for 15-20 silver now goes for 2-3 gold. Thorium bars are up almost 1g-2g a piece now. This goes for leather and other materials needed by the so-called 'war effort'. Craftsmen who buy and sell items off AH are just screwed until this war effort is over."
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Call for price controls:

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"1.) Without governmental controls (i.e., rationing and price caps) prices will clime dramatically on the war effort goods. If Blizzard is smart they'll come up with a voucher program and AH price caps for the war materials in next week's patch."
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Refute that argument by extolling free market values:

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"Blizzard isn't forcing anyone to pay or list those prices. Blizzard didn't create this - the players did by paying. It's that simple. Simple supply and demand. I can't believe how many people can't grasp this concept."
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"The general rule of thumb is when the costs of your goods outweigh the cost of the product produced, you don't produce said product."
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Sell goods for ridiculous amounts:

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"People need to think of the economy as now being on a wartime footing. The price of certain items will go up as there is a new need for them. I think it shows how dynamic a MMORPG economy can be. And once this event is over, prices will settle down again. But for now, this is an opportunity for war profiteers who manage the temporary changes to the economy well to make a lot of money."
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Moralize about the military-industrial complex:

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"You're encouraging war profiteering? Whoever said ethics were dead in Azeroth was right."
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Decry the triumph of capitalistic self-interest over common unity:

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"The whole server COULD have banded together and said... "Let's open AQ first!!! DROP ALL PRICES TO NOTHING!" I'm sorry to say however, in a capitalist run world in which nearly all of us exist in...we're programmed to respond differently."^*
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Worry about post-war recessions:

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"However, Blizz did affect the supply in the fact that thousands of people had god knows how many stacks of runecloth saved up ... Now that these stockpiles are gone, it will be interesting to see the price of runecloth after the event is over."
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Just not give a damn:

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"'Casual gamers' don't launch tirades about the awful burdens Blizzard puts on their video game commodities market. They don't complain bitterly about the going rate of bear skins in video game land."
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-Fin!

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*(I don't see that the prices are deterring people from donating to the war effort, since the demand is mostly price inelastic. Say the quest requires 90,000 bars of copper to be donated to the war drive to trigger the world event- if the price is low, a lot of newbie players will purchase the 90,000 bars, whereas if the price is driven up, a small elite guild of level 60 ubergamers purchases the 90,000 bars. Equity and distribution are irrelevant in this case. Overall quantity demanded is more or less the same.)

So True

I was chatting on World of Warcraft. A gnome asked me what I did, and I told him I was an econ major.

To which he replied: "So what else do you do, besides gaming and counting money?"

Well...

actually, that's pretty much it.

So! What's going on with me?

I'm being a research assistant for my econ prof

(Props to Dr. Mitch!)

What I'm doing is I'm cross-referencing 19th century marriage records to the 1851 census in Britain, to see if whether adult literacy rate (as determined by whether people sign their marriage license or just X it) matches up with their childhood educational backrounds.

So.. uh.. lots of Excel database stuff, really. And entertaining facets of 19th century life.

I don't think "farmer's widowed pauper" or "spoon polisher" or "pearl button cutter" really flies on resumes anymore. Or "gentleman."

This one time I was reading the job description for this guy, who described himself as a 'inge filer.' I was really confused until I read the other records, in which his son described the filer as being a locksmith.

Apparently he's a hinge filer.

Fuckin' Cockney!

Because We Love Bono

I'm an econ major and I've been hoping for G8 to succeed for a long time now. What is G8? Well, it's a summit of eight developed countries around the world deciding how to combat global poverty and environmental depredation. They're trying to do it by getting debt cancellation for third world countries and dedicating 0.7 percent of gross national product (among developed countries) for foreign aid. For those of you who are going "Huh?" basically this means that every one hundred dollars you spend, seven cents goes overseas. Currently, at least for the US, only 0.18 percent of GNP goes overseas, or ... 1.8 cents per $100. To put *that* into perspective, that's $15 billion dollars for foreign aid per year compared to $450 billion dollars for military expenditure. $15 billion dollars for all of Africa. Our $15 billion dollars is $12 per sub-Saharan African per year. That means you could probably buy an African like... a t-shirt. 0.7 percent of GNP would be $70 per African per year, which could buy them safe water, anti-malarial and anti-AIDs drugs, contraception, the beginning of investment in improved farming, like, say, fertilizer and irrigation. The village could afford, oh, a truck.

Another thing to think about: The top 400 richest people in the US put together earn 69 billion dollars. The combined citizenry of Botswana, Uganda, Nigeria and Senegal earn.. $57 billion. So basically the 400 richest people in the US earn more than 161 million people in Africa.

It's about time for G8.

It Sounded Like a Good Idea at the Time

Well, for my midterm assignment for Archaeology of Ancient Trade, I had to write a paper from the perspective of one person involved in ancient trade. Being that I had gotten three hours of sleep the night before (thanks a lot, daylight savings time! grrr.. and World of Warcraft) I thought it a great idea at the time to write this paper from the perspective of a pirate. An ancient Greek pirate.

"O Muses sing in me o' how I plundered th' Athenian galleon! Yar, matey!! Shiver me timbers! Thar be scurvy hoplites on yon trireme, sailin' th' wine dark sea! Avast! Thar be Persian silver buried here! Zeus give me strength from Olympus!!"

I think I have written the first academic paper ever completely in "pirate-speak."

Involvement Fest today. It was fun people watching. Unfortunately, the Political Economics booth I was manning was sandwiched with the Baptist Ministry, the Catholic frats, and the Mormons, so people basically walked by quickly, trying very hard not to make eye contact. If I had wrangled in the Republicans' Club member dressed like a giant flip-flop, I could've made it Conservative Alley or something.

Moved the booth next to the quiet heavily-trafficked College Democrats and Habitat for Humanity tables, and got quite a bit more traffic after that. As a bonus, I now have gimungous John Kerry for President sign which I'm displaying at my dorm room window.

Hey, did you know that there's a group going to Florida to campaign for Kerry? Man, that takes dedication.