Comparative Advantage Continued by Dwight R. Lee Dwight Lee is Ramsey Professor at the Terry College of Business, University of Georgia, and an adjunct fellow at the Center for Study of American Business at Washington University. The concept of comparative advantage, which I began discussing last month, is a straightforward application of opportunity cost and is almost embarrassingly simple. Certainly people have no trouble understanding and recognizing the importance of this concept in their own personal lives. For example, if you were the best brain surgeon in town and also the best at shining shoes, you would not try to be both a brain surgeon and a shoe shiner. Compared to other shoe shiners, you would be at a tremendous disadvantage shining shoes because of the value of your time performing brain surgery.
People are very good at finding and pursuing their comparative advantages.
This doesn t mean that people are always good at what they do. We have all seen people working at jobs they can t do well. It could be, of course, that they have made a mistake and will quickly move on to something they do better. But that clumsy waiter who keeps spilling hot soup on his customers may have a comparative advantage at being a waiter. He could be even worse at everything else.