1. use the concept of opportunity cost to explain the following
a. more people choose to get graduate degrees when the job market is poor.
b. more people choose to do their own home repairs when the economy is slow
and hourly wages are down.
c. there are more parks in suburban than urban areas.
d. fewer students enroll in classes that start before 10: 00am.

The correct answer is, the explanation using the opportunity cost is the following.

First, the opportunity cost is the benefits a person lose when it makes a decision of one thing over the other when the person has different alternatives.

This being the case:

a)more people choose to get graduate degrees when the job market is poor. The cost of opportunity, in this case is, that people do not get a job because maybe is not an attractive one or is paid low, but they prefer to get a degree or take courses for their continual education.

b)More people choose to do its own home repairs when the economy is slow and hourly wages are down. This way people can save some money doing their own home reparations instead of paying the service, but the quality of the work is at risk because it is not done by an expert that is qualified to do the job.

c)There are more parks in suburban than in urban areas. There are more people in urban areas that can go to the parks, but the places are going to be more crowded. The parks in the suburban areas are far away but there is going to be fewer people, more space and probably in better conditions.

d)  Fewer students enroll in classes that start before 10:00 AM. They prefer to sleep more time instead of waking up earlier, but the problem is that they are going to have less time to do their activities. They probably are going to be in a rush.

as university of miami psychologists debra lieberman and adam smith pointed out in a recent article in the journal current directions in psychological science, humans have social and psychological mechanisms to deter incest. with very few exceptions, marriages between brothers and sisters and between parents and their children are verboten in every human culture. the primary psychological anti-incest mechanism is the yuck response. even the idea of sex with their mom or dad, bro or sis is upsetting to most people. the psychologist jonathan haidt has found that nearly everyone is repelled by the prospect of brother-sister sex, even in hypothetical situations in which there is no chance of pregnancy).

the biological cost of incest

this raises an interesting question: just what’s so bad about incest? sure, having sex with your dad or your sister seems gross — but why? some anthropologists have argued that incest taboos are learned social conventions. this explanation, however, doesn’t make sense to me as it does not explain the widespread existence of anti-incest mechanisms in creatures ranging from cockroaches to chimpanzees. second, the incest taboo is about as close to a universal law as human moral rules get.

why should mechanisms to avoid incest be so widespread both in nature and across human societies? the answer is simple. the problem with having sex close with relatives is that there is an astonishingly high chance that your offspring will be born with a serious birth defect.