One of Greg Mankiw's Econ 10 students writes in with this heartwarming tale of learning in action:
I just was watching some West Wing in my room and they were talking about protecting pharmaceutical patents. The one guy says "Those pills cost them four cents a unit to make..." and the other guy says "You know that's not true! The second pill costs them four cents, the first pill costs them four hundred million dollars!" Just thought it was cool that I understood why this was and I wouldn't have a few weeks ago.
Sure. But the first pill also cost taxpayers untold million to conduct the fundamental research on, and the second pill cost the pharmaceutical manufacturer a bit under a billion to advertise.
