I learned about Giffen goods in Microeconomics today. They are goods that people buy more of when the price goes up and less of when the price goes down. There is only one recorded Giffen good in recent history. According to Dr. Sohng, it was the potato during the Irish potato famine. I know it's not a reliable source but, Wikipedia says otherwise:
Great Famine in Ireland
Potatoes during the Irish Great Famine were long believed to be the only example of a Giffen good. But this theory was debunked by Gerald P. Dwyer and Cotton M. Lindsey in their 1984 article Robert Giffen and the Irish Potato[3][4], where they showed the contradicting nature of the Giffen "legend" with respect to historical evidence.
The Giffen nature of the Irish potato was also later discredited by Sherwin Rosen of the University of Chicago in his 1999 paper Potato Paradoxes[5]. Rosen showed that the phenomenon could be explained by a normal demand model.
I still was slightly taken off guard by the whole thing and as usual had that overwhelming "I can't believe some other reference to Ireland came up this week" moment.
While studying copious amounts of material that I will never remember for Comparative Economics, I came across a reference to politics and Labour Parties. We discussed the fact, and I've noted, that in the UK and Ireland Labour Parties are considered actual political parties.
I keep coming across various headlines in The Economist that deal with Ireland, also ads for Innovation in Ireland.
I presented at Study Abroad Club this week. My audience was small, but it did me good to talk about it. I talked to a friend after about how it went and when I hung with him a mixture of stress relief from being done with it, exhaustion, and longing hit me in a small bout of tears. I'm just wondering how long this is going to go on for. The only thing I can really equate it to is heartbreak, but with a country, it's people, culture, customs, way of life, etc., instead of with a person.
One of the hardest things for me to come to grips with is the alienation part of reverse culture shock. Sure I felt super alienated when I first arrived in Ireland, but after a couple of weeks I stopped clinging to everything American and started to accept everything Irish. Part of the appeal of being overseas was the anonymity of it all. I was ok with feeling alone because no one knew me, there was no expectation, quite a bit of independence. Now that I'm home I find myself expecting more of people than I should which is frustrating. I missed out on things while I was gone and having had the experiences I did alienates me further as not many people can relate. When I find someone who has studied abroad, the conversation is like a rare gem. I want to hold onto it for safe keeping but I know I have to spread my fingers and let it fall through eventually because life stops for no one, especially college students with exams.
I'm getting antsy to go somewhere, anywhere. I wish I could afford to go back to Dublin, live there, go to other places in Europe on holiday. The only thing is I have family and friends I care about here. I'm having trouble defining what is important. Also while studying for Comparative I came across Skinner. We discussed him in class and his idea that we aren't free, we are influenced by the media, people, and the environment. They tell us what we want, we don't decide, we follow a trend.
You only get one life to live. So what do you do with it? Do you surround yourself with family and friends in your native country? Do you go to a foreign country and thrive on learning about a new culture and how people live life there?
When I was in Ireland I was so sure of what I wanted out of life. Now I'm not so sure and that scares me a bit.
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