How to Tell Who Your Friends Are
The concept of elasticity is more than intellectual device
to examine strictly „economic" data. It can be useful to you in a practical
manner. It can help you classify the quality of your friends. Elasticity is always calculated in percentage
terms, as a ration of the percent change in the effect to the percent change in
the cause.
Friendship elasticity can be interpreted from an economic perspective. A "good friend" is someone who has a low price elasticity of demand for your companionship. In other words, the person in question desires your company pretty much independently of what it cost him or her. You can raise the "price" of your friendship to a friend behaving badly – being late for dates, being loud and obnoxious, grinding your teeth, not keeping your word, lying, and so on. But your friend will not desert you at the "higher" price. The demand for your friendship is inelastic; consumption of your friendship does not change much at all when its price rises.
Other people will not pass the friendship test. Their demand
for your companionship will be very elastic. If things get even slightly more
difficult, they will desert you. Perhaps there are large numbers of substitutes
for your friendship available.
Think of your own personal relationships. Do you not know of people who have a high elasticity of demand for you? How do they behave – missed phone calls, only cal when they want to do? And what about your good friends? Need we say more? Elasticity can be applied to the interpretation of friendship. Indeed, is not love a relatively inelastic demand curve?
Yes
No
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