I feel like comparative advantage is a bit hard to understand and the concept often seems to be used incorrectly (as far as I can tell). For example, people giving career advice talk about “finding your comparative advantage” when this amounts to “do what pays the most” which seems obvious and uninteresting. (The following example that it can be better to hire someone than do everything yourself is slightly less obvious, though has caveats in the real world due to principal-agent/search costs/etc).
Didn’t follow that link, but the conclusion is wrong.
Youth should pursue their competitive advantage which is closer to “what has the best (pay+pleasure)/effort ratio” than “what pays the most.”
I agree with you that it’s hard to understand and that a lot of times people use the term inexactly to mean something else, but neither of these is a reason to avoid using the term, especially in the exact context where it is easiest to illustrate and can be used correctly.
I feel like comparative advantage is a bit hard to understand and the concept often seems to be used incorrectly (as far as I can tell). For example, people giving career advice talk about “finding your comparative advantage” when this amounts to “do what pays the most” which seems obvious and uninteresting. (The following example that it can be better to hire someone than do everything yourself is slightly less obvious, though has caveats in the real world due to principal-agent/search costs/etc).
Didn’t follow that link, but the conclusion is wrong. Youth should pursue their competitive advantage which is closer to “what has the best (pay+pleasure)/effort ratio” than “what pays the most.”
I agree with you that it’s hard to understand and that a lot of times people use the term inexactly to mean something else, but neither of these is a reason to avoid using the term, especially in the exact context where it is easiest to illustrate and can be used correctly.