سؤال قراءة ستيب محلول — فهم التفاصيل (تدريب 6509)

(1) Jobs that are dangerous or unpleasant must pay more than jobs requiring similar skills but without the bad attributes. Thus, oil field workers in Alaska’s North Slope, well above the Arctic Circle, earn a premium over workers in similar jobs in Houston, Texas. The premium – or differential pay – must be such that the marginal worker is indifferent between the two choices – the extra pay compensates the worker for the adverse working conditions. This is why it is known in economics jargon by the phrase of a compensating differential. (1) The high salaries earned by professional basketball players are not a compensating differential. These salaries are not created by a need to induce tall people to choose basketball over alternative jobs like painting ceilings, but instead are payments that reflect the rarity of the skills and abilities involved. Compensating differentials are determined by alternatives, not by direct scarcity. Professional basketball players are well-paid for the same reason that Picasso’s paintings are expensive: there aren’t very many of them relative to demand. (2) A compensating differential is a feature of other choices as well as career choices. For example, many people would like to live in California. for its weather and scenic beauty. Given the desirability of California over, say, Lincoln, Nebraska or Rochester, New York, there must be a compensating differential for living in Rochester, and two significant ones are air quality and housing prices. Air quality worsens as populations rise thus, tending to create a compensating differential. In addition, the increase in housing prices also tends to compensate – housing is inexpensive in Rochester, at least compared to California. what does Paragraph (1) say about Houston, Texas?