THE DEMAND CURVE FOR BOOKS.
THE DEMAND CURVE FOR BOOKS. In the review I linked to yesterday Elizabeth Kolbert views the findings of behavioral economics as demonstrating the failures of economic theory. She begins her review with an anecdote in which she is persuaded by an offer of free shipping from Amazon to buy a book for her twins that she would not otherwise have bought. She concludes from this that: “I had cost myself $12.91.” She then suggests that the real question posed by the book is “why we persist in accepting economic theory.” Kids, I hope the objection that “her twins do have a book they chose at a lower price” occurred to you. An economist might look at her purchase as a simple move along her individual demand curve: Amazon offered her a lower price for a delivered book, and she decided to buy one at the lower price.