In his op-ed regarding the wholly unbalanced training of today’s economists (because so many of them are not getting any training in price theory), Steven Landsburg, an economics professor at the University of Rochester, wrote that he puts a question to his students, all of whom get the correct answer, and to  variety of smart lawyers, accountants, entrepreneurs, and scientists, nearly all of whom do not.

The question:

Apples are provided by a competitive industry. Pears are provided by a monopolist. Coincidentally, they sell at the same price. You’re hungry and would be equally happy with an apple or a pear. If you care about conserving societal resources, which should you buy?

Landsburg’s answer:

In a competitive industry, prices are a pretty good indicator of resource costs. Under a monopoly, prices usually reflect a substantial markup. So a $1 apple sold by a competitor probably requires almost a dollar’s worth of resources to produce. A $1 pear sold by a monopolist is more likely to require, say, 80 cents worth of resources. To minimize resource consumption, you should buy the pear.

Maybe. Maybe not. The monopolist is unlikely to be using his resources efficiently; competition will drive that producer to maximize efficiency in resource usage. On a per fruit item basis, it may be that the two are using resources the same. Maybe the competitive producer is using fewer resources per fruit item.

The more accurate answer is that there isn’t enough information in the question to provide an answer.