App reviewers (creative destruction and how the economy just keeps creating new types of occupations & professions)

See Apple’s App Store Puts Kids a Click Away From a Slew of Inappropriate Apps by Aaron Tilley of The WSJ. Excerpt:

"The company employs an App Store review team, which is composed of several hundred reviewers" (they review apps to make sure they are safe for kids). 

Related posts: 

Who wrote your potential love's online dating profile? (maybe they outsourced it to a professional who specializes in that) (2016)

New Profession Of "Wedding Hashtag Helper" Might Be An Example Of Creative Destruction At Work (2022)

Are dating coaches who help you with texting modern Cyrano de Bergeracs? (2023)

Do You Need a Fixer for Your Disney Vacation? Third-party companies tout advanced knowledge for private tours of complex amusement parks that can cost $1,000 and up (2023)

Parents Hire $4,000 Sorority Consultants to Help Daughters Dress and Impress During Rush (creative destruction and how the economy just keeps creating new types of occupations & professions) (2023)

Prompt engineers chat with generative-AI chatbots (creative destruction and how the economy just keeps creating new types of occupations & professions) (2023)

"Wedding content creators" curate the perfect social-media-ready images of the nuptials and celebration (creative destruction and how the economy just keeps creating new types of occupations & professions) (2023)

 

"Independent education consultants" help high school students and their parents navigate the competitive college-admissions process (creative destruction and how the economy just keeps creating new types of occupations & professions) (2024)

"Robot Wranglers" help lost and confused automatons (creative destruction and how the economy just keeps creating new types of occupations & professions) (2024)

Professional Bridesmaids (creative destruction and how the economy just keeps creating new types of occupations & professions) (2024)

 

Handbag authenticators (creative destruction and how the economy just keeps creating new types of occupations & professions) (2024) 

 

Creative Destruction

See Creative Destruction by Richard Alm and W. Michael Cox. Excerpt:

"Joseph Schumpeter
(1883–1950) coined the seemingly paradoxical term “creative destruction,” and generations of economists have adopted it as a shorthand description of the free market’s messy way of delivering progress. In Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (1942), the Austrian economist wrote:

The opening up of new markets, foreign or domestic, and the organizational development from the craft shop to such concerns as U.S. Steel illustrate the same process of industrial mutation—if I may use that biological term—that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one. This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism. (p. 83)

Although Schumpeter devoted a mere six-page chapter to “The Process of Creative Destruction,” in which he described capitalism as “the perennial gale of creative destruction,” it has become the centerpiece for modern thinking on how economies evolve."

But also see this link which suggests that the idea goes back even before Schumpeter to other scholars: Creative Destruction in Economics: Nietzsche, Sombart, Schumpeter by Hugo Reinert and Erik S. Reinert.

"Abstract

This paper argues that the idea of ‘creative destruction’ enters the social sciences by way of Friedrich Nietzsche. The term itself is first used by German economist Werner Sombart, who openly acknowledges the influence of Nietzsche on his own economic theory. The roots of creative destruction are traced back to Indian philosophy, from where the idea entered the German literary and philosophical tradition. Understanding the origins and evolution of this key concept in evolutionary economics helps clarifying the contrasts between today’s standard mainstream economics and the Schumpeterian and evolutionary alternative."

This post is featured in an economics textbook

The post is below. It is featured in Introduction to Microeconomics by Luís Cabral. He is chair of the economics department at New York University.

Here is an excerpt from the book followed by the post from May 27, 2019:

"Once you get into the mechanics of comparative statics, it should come naturally to interpret real-world events as shocks to demand and supply curves, which in turn lead to adjustments in price and transaction volumes. Consider some recent events in the honey industry, as described in Box 7.1 (source: Cyril Morong). The left column includes a series of quotes from a Wall Street Journal article on the honey industry. The right column, in turn, includes a series of comments on how to interpret these events in terms of the model of supply and demand." (see pages 274-75 of Dr. Cabral's book) 

Why honey prices have climbed about 25% since 2013

See You’ll Need a Lot More Money to Buy That Jar of Honey: Beekeepers are in a sweet spot as consumer trends shift away from cane sugar and high-fructose corn syrup by Lucy Craymer of The WSJ. Excerpts, with my comments in brackets:

"Honey prices are starting to sting.

Global honey prices are at their highest levels in years, due to a new wave of consumer demand for natural sweeteners [demand increases because tastes or preferences increased with the opposite happening for sugar] and declining bee populations that are hampering mass production [supply decreases]."

"In addition, it is being used more as an ingredient in shampoos, moisturizers and other personal-care products that companies market as naturally made [another increase in demand due to tastes]."

"Retail honey prices world-wide recently averaged $4.69 a pound, according to market research firm Euromonitor International. Prices have climbed about 25% since 2013, while the cost of sugar has fallen around 30% over the same time frame."

"U.S. retail prices averaged $7.66 a pound in May, up 9% from a year earlier"

"Those prices have risen by about two-thirds in the last decade"

"Americans consumed 596 million pounds of honey in 2017, or an average of nearly two pounds per person—up 65% since 2009 [if demand shifts right, we expect both price and quantity to increase]."

"It has been touted by celebrities—including tennis star Novak Djokovic—for its health benefits and numerous scientific studies have shown it can help heal wounds, ulcers and burns [maybe this is part of the reason tastes increased]."

"Global honey production has been relatively stable over the past five years [but if supply shifted left that could cancel out the demand increase and leave quantity the same]."

"In the U.S., honey production peaked in 2014 and has fallen 15% since then [if supply shifted more to the left than demand shifted to the right, total Q falls-maybe the increased American quantity means less for consumers elsewhere]."

Free food distribution in Nigeria leads to stampede and deaths

See Death toll rises in Nigerian charity event stampedes: In both incidents, the victims were primarily women and children, who had queued for food handouts for hours. Excerpt:

"The number of people who died in stampedes at two charity events in Nigeria has increased from 13 to 32, police said on Sunday.

At least 22 people were killed when they rushed to collect donations, including rice and vegetable oil and money, at an event in the southeastern Anambra state's Okija town on Saturday.

Another ten people, including four children, were crushed to death at a church-organized event in the capital, Abuja, where free food was being distributed.

Police said they were investigating the two incidents, which came days after another stampede killed 35 children at a school fair in the southwestern city of Ibadan."

A good is scarce when there is not enough to go around when it is given away for free. We don't often hear people say that food is scarce. But in this case we can see that it is. It was given away for free and too many people showed up. If we don't use prices to ration goods, some other method (like who waits in line the longest) will be used and the results might not be good. 

Related posts about problems when thing are given away for free:

 

Are food, clothing and shoes scarce? If they are, could ignoring that fact be deadly? 

 

Florida counties give away vaccine for free and there are long lines

 
Chaos ensues when stuffed bears are given away (almost) free of charge.

Domino's & T-Mobile discover there is no such thing as free pizza. Too many took advantage of offer. They ran out.

What happens if you give electricity away for free? (Tesla post)

Taco Bell Gives Away "Free" Tacos, Problems Arise.

IHOP Gives Away Free Pancakes And Gets Slammed.

There Is No Such Thing As Free Salt (Or Sand) .

Trees Are Scarce In San Antonio!

Free Can Be Deadly. (give aways lead to stampedes)

More Free Give Aways Lead to Trouble. (A shopping mall in California gave away free gift certificates)

Josh Hamilton’s grand slam causes a flooring and countertop shortage  

 

There's no such thing as free cheesecake