in Previous Postto EconLog readers, mummy and The Mummy: Reborn This post continues that discussion.
Another important lesson in economics is the iconic team-up of Evelyn and Jonathan Carnahan and Rick O’Connell, who demonstrated the value of specialization and Comparative advantageEvelyn brings her academic knowledge as a librarian to the team, and helps rescue the Book of the Dead, the Book of the Living, the mirror that illuminates the underground caverns, and sah-netjer The mummification room. Rick brings a gunslinger adventurer skill set to the team, as well as crucial knowledge of The Mummy’s location (“Don’t worry, I’m the map, it’s all here”). Jonathan is above all a pickpocket, a crucial skill when excavating treasure or battling mummies. Gains from trade are only possible if the parties work together through cooperative exchange.
The characters also show how the benefits of cooperation can overcome conflict between groups, and how not sharing knowledge can lead to social costs. Initially, during the Race to the Mummy, the Americans compete with the iconic trio of Evie, Rick, and Jonathan to reach The Mummy first. The race ends with one of the guides being trampled (a dangerous prospect, as the camel’s top speed is about 40 miles per hour) and no medical attention in sight. Similarly, in the early stages of the excavation, the groups work separately, and competition for resources, from excavation sites to tools, is a constant threat of violence, including with the Egyptian excavators working for the American team. However, after the first attack on the camp by the Medjai, an ominous warning of further danger, the two groups set aside their differences and cooperate to seek the social benefits of survival.
Specialist skills also help overcome imperfect transport networks. Even Winston, a drunken RAF pilot who wants to relive the glory days of World War I, brings his expert flying skills to Ardeth, Rick and Jonathan as they pursue the kidnapped Evelyn. Izzy, an airship pilot who has converted an RAF base into “Magic Carpet Airways”, The Mummyis filling a key gap in the transportation market as well.
As Adam Smith Written in Volume 1, Chapter 1 The Wealth of Nations,
But the division of labour, so far as it is introduced, in every art, produces a proportionate increase in the productive powers of labour. The separation of different trades and employments from one another seems to have arisen as a result of this advantage. This separation, too, is generally most advanced in those countries which enjoy the highest degree of industry and improvement. What is the work of one man in a rude society, usually becomes the work of several in an improved one. This great increase in the amount of work which the same number of men can perform, as a result of the division of labour, is due to three distinct circumstances. First, the increased dexterity of the individual workman; secondly, the saving of the time usually lost in passing from one kind of work to another; and, finally, the invention of a great number of machines which facilitate and shorten labour, and enable one man to do the work of many.
Thus, throughout the story, we also see how the benefits of specialization and trade grow as people expand their networks. When Medjai Ardeth Bey comes to the rescue with his expertise on how to defeat the mummy Imhotep, the new team is able to take on Imhotep’s forces with success that none of the characters would have experienced on their own.
Labor market problems
Admission to the Bembridge Scholars functioned as a kind of self-conferring right to academic status, the prestige and rights that went with it. This coveted but optional qualification, on scrutiny, mummy and sequels. In both films, Evelyn discovers evidence overlooked or dismissed by previous scholars, and she corrects a key mistranslation in the first film, despite being repeatedly rejected by the Bembridge Scholars’ Guild. The film thus shows that credentialism may not be the indicator of quality that it is often made out to be. Whether her exclusion from the Scholars’ Guild was for gender-based reasons is unclear. discrimination As Egyptologists attest, or the actions of the anti-competitive and exclusive guild, it is Evelyn’s expertise that wins out, not her qualifications or even her lack of field experience. When she finally becomes a member in the second film, Hafez, the curator at the British Museum, also turns out to be on the side of evil by resurrecting Imhotep again. Perhaps The Mummy Assume that exclusive guilds can reproduce corruptionThe Bembridge scholars faced a particular competitive threat, as they had “begged” Evelyn to run the British Museum in the early 1940s. The Mummy: Reborn Perhaps saving the world from an immortal monster determined to destroy it is a better sign of quality than qualifications.
The issue of information asymmetry in the labor market can also be considered. mummyIn The Mummy, the Egyptian miners working for the American team under the direction of an Egyptologist have little information about the dangers they face, and the same can be said for the miners working under the direction of Hafez in the sequel. mummyIn The Great Gatsby, Egyptologists warn Americans not to open the pedestal of the Anubis statue because it may contain ancient booby traps, but give no such warning to the miners. Without clear appeal to courts or other legal protections, we can see how information asymmetry can lead to moral hazard problems. In both films, the miners are not told everything they need to know to safely perform their jobs. This is an example of information asymmetry that is not common in most economics textbooks, yet it reveals an important economic concept.
Negative externalities
Against the backdrop of these mundane institutional problems, the mummy Imhotep presents a terrifying economic idea in its own right. In particular, the curse of Homdai, which the Pharaoh’s soldiers placed on him, raises a classic problem of concentrated benefits and distributed costs. While being tormented by Homdai for thousands of years is certainly horrible, the benefits of the curse are concentrated on the Pharaoh’s soldiers (and presumably their daughters) who enforce the curse in the name of justice. But the distributed costs of Homdai are HugeIt first imposes a cost on the 3,000-year lifetimes of the Medjai who must protect Hamunaptra, and later on the inhabitants of Cairo, and theoretically the entire world. Thus, placing a curse is bound to have significant negative effects. Externalitiessocial costs far exceed private costs, especially Homdai, suggesting inefficient intertemporal resource allocation by first-stage players.
The economic damage caused by the Homdai will also have long-term effects as further resources will be wasted on rebuilding Cairo and compensating the victims. The Medjay may have set up insurance and compensation funds to cover the damage over millennia, or there may be hidden taxes in the tax code. In the real world, most contracts and insurance plans include Deux Ex Machina Limiting liability and permitting breaches of contract during unforeseen catastrophic circumstances, such as the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic or severe weather.
One wonders how the residents of Cairo managed to rebuild their city. Since it was Evelyn who reawakened Imhotep, perhaps she used some of the treasure to fund restoration. Perhaps donating some of the proceeds from the sale of the recovered treasure could help rebuild the Cairo Museum, which was damaged by the rain of fire in the film. However, since Rick and Evelyn had moved to London by 2000, it’s doubtful this ever happened. The Mummy Much of the second book is devoted to Evelyn’s status at the British Museum. Yet her actions in the first book have all the hallmarks of unintended consequences. Whether it’s flipping over every shelf in the Cairo Museum library or raising the dead through her curious reading of the Book of the Dead, Evelyn is a reminder that unintended consequences, even from well-intentioned people, can be frequent and costly. And as any economist knows, Intention is not the outcomePresumably, with a good system, Evelyn would purchase personal liability insurance to cover the costs of a disaster.
Darwin Deyo is an associate professor of economics at San Jose State University.
Alicia Plemmons is an assistant professor at West Virginia University and director of the Free Enterprise Center.
