broken collar bone and ribs- what now?

Robert Chung wrote:

gwhite wrote:

I thought you were using the word "spontaneous" in the sense of
"without external influence."

As I learned in micro and macro, which is where I stopped in formal
college study.

I'm vaguely surprised you're not familiar with the literature on clustered
siting: it depends on externality benefits.

I don't study it per se*; just thinking and mostly applying simple
principles. "Simple" is all it takes to do a double-take to
"[Specialists] tend to make more in areas where competition ... is
higher."

I've presumed concentrations, minus gov-bene's and/or "collusion" (no
judgement), were based on neighborhood effects, which seems the more
intuitive of the "spillover" synonyms in this case.

And the point isn't always after-the-fact:
mall developers try to do this all the time.

But isn't the mall developer really just taking a look at the
environment, like the grocery shopper, and making their best assessment
on what they believe will advantage them? Perceiving a positive
externality (an environ with particular benefits), and acting on it, is
still spontaneous order, as I see it. Even if they have a so-called
"systematic" way of evaluating possible sites, the mall developer is
still acting as a "cell." (Minus gov-bene's and collusion stuff, of
course.)



=======================================
BTW, I've always known what you believed the cross-nation plots
implied regarding the government interference "problem." I've
typically ignored them; for one thing my central concern is not a
nation-to-nation comparative one. In this thread, I deliberately
"interpreted" them in a way that ignored the "question" you intended.
That deliberation was me attempting to cast a troll hook, just for
engagement. As ever, I suck at trolling. It seemed like you thought I
"believed" the interpretation I presented, and had no idea of the
implication.

=======================================
* Economics and the methods of economists are not my thing. OTOH, I do
think the "economic way of thinking" is powerful and has broad
application. My interest is more peace/prosperity and politics, but I
think it is impossible to make sense of those without some econ
background (among other things; it's one arrow in the quiver). Time
constraints only allow study of econ on a marginal and issue-reference
basis. For example, I was having some questions about why firms come
into being and how they continue existance. Poking around, Coase popped
up, through no prior knowledge of mine. I wasn't even looking for an
economist's perspective. So I made a cliff-notes read, which was all I
could afford.

gwhite wrote:
But isn't the mall developer really just taking a look at the
environment, like the grocery shopper, and making their best assessment
on what they believe will advantage them?

No, I didn't mean in the mall developer's siting decision; I meant that
the mall developer tries to create externality benefits for the tenants of
the mall. The main externality benefit, from the mall tenants point of
view, is that it reduces search costs for the customer. You may not know
exactly which store within a mall will have the pair of relaxed fit 550's
you need to cover your master fatty butt, but you go there because there
are enough stores close to another so your search costs go down. It's
thought that similar externality benefits are the reason why Chinese
restaurants, or retail computer stores, or jewelry stores, or any of these
smaller retail outlets, cluster together. Huge big box retail stores don't
need it so they try to site themselves off alone.

I do think the "economic way of thinking" is powerful and has
broad application.

That's what economists want you to believe.