Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Smart Drugs

Seeing as it's exam time, I'm keen to know whether these smart drugs have made it to Australia, or at least Brisbane.

See the Freaknonomics Blog
Adderall Speculation


By Daniel Hamermesh

Students apparently consume mass quantities of the performance-enhancing drug Adderall during exam time. Normally the price is $3 for 10 mg, but it rises during exam week to at least $5.
One student reports that in his suburban Dallas hometown, drug dealers, realizing this price variation, speculated by buying up large supplies of the drug at $3 and dumping them on the market during exam time, hoping to sell at $5.
They didn’t realize that this large increase in supply would cause the price to drop below $5. Indeed, so many dealers engaged in speculation that there was a surplus at the usual equilibrium price of $3. Students were able to buy the drug for only $2 as dealers sold off their excess supply. One imagines that the dealers were less enthusiastic about speculation the next year and that the exam-week price stayed above $3. (HT: AM)

1 comment:

  1. Even your blogs on drugs are related to economics.

    For the record, neither myself nor my friends in law school/IR have used or even come across these 'study aides' before.

    ReplyDelete

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