Cose: For me, the cost of having some one next to me to do that for me isn't worth it. But for him, evidently, in his situation, as maybe he's not very good at cleaning me as well, he may be inferior. Yesi may be a case of absolute advantage in that case. The underlying insight here is the import of transaction costs. Until the nature of the firm was published, economists paid little attention to transaction costs. It has implications, and has had implications for research in a industrial organization.