Too Many Right Shoes? — Welcome to Economics

Sometimes having more isn’t helpful, unless things work out together.

Yeah, maybe :)

If you have a mischievous sibling (or a pup like Sher), you probably know the struggle of ending up with two right shoes and only one left — and the other left shoe is probably counting its last few minutes of life. No? Just me? Okay, then picture this: It’s a Sunday morning, you’re all set to make a delicious breakfast but accidentally add a little too much salt to your gunpowder… yeah, absolutely everything is ruined.

Both these little disasters show us something important in economics: some things only work when they come together just right.

Your shoes only help if you have both left and right — that’s called complementing. And your breakfast turns out tasty only when you balance ingredients — that’s a coordination.

Another perfect example of these two factors comes from the book The Economics of Small Things by Sudipta Sarangi. He talks about how, after liberalization in India, the loan industry changed dramatically — banks started giving out car loans much more easily.

And what did people do? Of course — they bought cars! A lot of them.

But here’s the catch: while car ownership exploded, no one thought about expanding the road network. The result? Too many cars, too few roads — and boom, traffic jams everywhere. The greatest daily irritant in every city dweller’s life.

Think about popcorn stalls outside a movie theatre — they’re the perfect complement to the movie experience. Watching a film without popcorn? Feels incomplete. But even here, coordination is key.

If the popcorn machine is running when no one’s around, it wastes electricity. If raw materials aren’t stocked before a blockbuster release, stalls run out just when demand peaks. The timing of operations, the stocking of supplies, and syncing with movie showtimes — all of it has to align.

Because even the perfect complement, without good coordination, turns into a missed opportunity.

So why did I suddenly write about this?

Because I realized this concept has practical application in my own life too. Just yesterday, I watched three videos on sorting (yeah… DSA — sad life!). But I didn’t actually practice on LeetCode — our real battlefield.

Watching videos without solving problems is like having the theory but not the weapon. Complementing my learning with practice, and coordinating my time to do both, is what leads to real progress. That’s how we get better — not just in economics, but in everyday learning.

Everything around us revolves around complementing things to enhance their value — and coordinating them just right to maximize the benefit. And this isn’t just through the lens of an economist — it’s something we all experience in our daily lives. Whether we realize it or not, we’re constantly pairing the right things and aligning them in time, space, and effort to make life smoother, smarter, and sometimes, just a little less chaotic.

Thank You.