Econ

File: 817.gif (1MB, 360x279px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 360x279px

>So what's the actual point of studying indifference curves?

pretty much the most retarded shit you can find school books in general. because econ is not real science they make shit like this up to make it look like real science and create some content

>economics
>applied

urgh, what are you? a filthy business student? in sciences nobody cares about applications...

actual answer: you're learning the foundations of a basic model that virutally all of economics is founded on. a homo oeconomicus exhibits rational behaviour when confronted with a decision between two goods. he's always trying to maximize his utility and this is how you put it into mathematical terms. if you understand why the curves look like they do, why they are monotonous, transitive, etc you understand a lot of basic assumptions in economics. it also completes the mathematical model and is the demand-side equivalent of the production curve, given budget restraints.

like most stuff you learn at university: the actual knowledge is mostly useless. *understanding* what's behind the knowledge is what'll serve you for the rest of your life.

or at least it's usefull to know where mainstream economics is coming from (if only to know exactly where they're dead wrong).

File: Natalie Hershlag Hot 2013_6.jpg (152KB, 1600x1200px) Image search: [Google]

152KB, 1600x1200px

so it does not matter whether it's bullshit your not, econ studies are important so you can understand what is behind the the bullshit is, that makes a lot sense. serve you for the rest of your life...sure...

>>1414320
>if you understand why the curves look like they do, why they are monotonous, transitive, etc you understand a lot of basic assumptions in economics

Wait a second, that's not true. What other concepts builds on this?

>>1414343
go one step further. it's not only about theoretical economics. it's about teaching you a mindset. it gives you a clue how to approach real world problems.

you are hired by a big corporation. they give you their sales figures, marketing studies and estimates of what their competitors are shifting. then they show you their new product and ask you to predict sales figures and set an optimal price.
now you start thinking. indifference curves, at least the way they are taught at university, are completely useless for this problem. but it gives you several clues - customers would have preferences and budget constraints. you have to account for competition and price elasticity. a real world problem will never be a fully rational decision between two goods with all variables known. but since you solved the easy cases at university, you can figure out applications. the abstract knowledge is useless. the mindset of efficiently approaching such a problem is what matters.

the last sentence in my post above was just a reminder that you can't critizise something without understanding it first. (strangely fitting given your post, how little you even tried to wrap your head around what's at discussion). the way mainstream eco models the world is horribly flawed. but to properly realize where they go wrong (and improve upon it) you have to first work through a few hundred years of economic theory. you can try and call it "bullshit" without that, but nobody'll take you seriously.

>>1414293
Another way to think about indifference curves is that they allow introductory economics professors to talk about optimization problems without requiring all the students have a strong background in higher level mathematics. This type of problem comes up a lot in many different fields, so it's good to have a solid conceptual understanding. In practice, people spend their careers coming up with methods to solve these problems (with more data obviously).

As an undergrad, this is supposed to be a "trivial" simplification. Try not to loose sleep over it, it gets better!