Note: This is post #57 in a weekly video series on basic microeconomics.

If you had to choose, would you rather be a sewer inspector spending your days underground or a lifeguard on the beach? Most would say that being a lifeguard is a more fun job, but a sewer inspector has higher wages pensate for the less-fun aspects of the job. In this video, Marginal Revolution University discusses the tradeoff between fun and wages and show how this illustrates that “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch!”

(If you find the pace of the videos too slow, I’d mend watching them at 1.5 to 2 times the speed. You can adjust the speed at which the video plays by clicking on “Settings” (the gear symbol) and changing “Speed” from normal to 1.25, 1.5 or 2.)

Previous in series: How the ‘sheepskin effect’ signals education and affects wages