The Price of Everything - Eduardo Porter [120]
22-24 A Histor y of Prices: The discussion of the concept of process from Aristotle to Marx draws from Eric Roll, A History of Economic Thought (London: Faber and Faber, 1992). Marx’s statement about value relations is drawn from Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. 1 (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr and Company, 1915), p. 83.
25-30 Taming Prices: The analysis on the value of sports-club subscriptions draws from: Stefano Della Vigna and Ulrike Malmendier, “Overestimating Self-control: Evidence from the Health Club Industry,” NBER Working Paper, September 2004. The data on the costs of printing are found in www.hp.com; www.riteaid.com; Jeff Bertolucci, “How Much Ink Is Left in That Dead Cartridge?” PC World, November 2, 2008 (http://www.pcworld.com/article/152953/how_much_ink_is_left_in_that_dead_cartridge/html, accessed 08/13/2010); and Stephen Shankland, “HP Sues Firms That Refill Ink Cartridges,” CNET, March 28, 2005 (http://news.cnet.com/HP%20sues%20firms%20that%20refill%20ink%20cartridges/2100-1041_3-5643687.html?tag=techdirt, accessed 08/13/2010). Families’ reaction to high gas prices drawn from Dora Gicheva, Justine Hastings, and Sofia Villas-Boas, “Revisiting the Income Effect: Gasoline Prices and Grocery Purchases,” NBER Working Paper, November 2007. The analysis of companies’ reaction to changes in food prices draws from Anne Kadet, “Who Shrunk the Cereal?,” Smart Money, November 6, 2008; Stuart Elliot, “Food Brands Compete to Stretch a Dollar,” New York Times, May 10, 2009; and Adweek, “French’s Puts ‘Fun,’ ‘Value’ on Menu,” May 11, 2009. Data on phone prices drawn from Federal Communications Commission, The Industry Analysis Division’s Reference Book of Rates, Price Indices and Expenditures for Telephone Service, July 1998 (http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Reports/FCC-State_Link/IAD/ref98.pdf, accessed 08/13/2010); www.att.com; and http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProducts/displayTopic.do?topicId=25500. Sandra Kurtzig’s tale is drawn from http://venturehacks.com/articles/pricing, accessed 08/13/2010. Airlines’ reaction to Southwest Airways is found in Austan Goolsbee and Chad Svyerson, “How Do Incumbents Respond to the Threat of Entry? Evidence from the Major Airlines,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 123, No. 4, November 2008, pp. 1611- 1633. Discussion of the effect of Walmart on competitors and prices draws from Jerry Hausman and Ephraim Leibtag, “Consumer Benefits from Increased Competition in Shopping Outlets: Measuring the Effect of Wal-Mart,” NBER Working Paper, December 2005; Vishal P. Singh, Karsten T. Hansen, and Robert C. Blattberg, “Market Entry and Consumer Behavior: An Investigation of a Wal-Mart Supercenter,” Marketing Science, September 1, 2006; Emek Basker, “Selling a Cheaper Mousetrap: Wal-Mart’s Effect on Retail Prices,” Journal of Urban Economics, Vol. 58, No. 2, September 2005, pp. 203-229; Emek Basker, “The Causes and Consequences of Wal-Mart’s Growth,” Journal of Economic Perspectives , Vol. 21, No. 3, Summer 2007, pp. 177-198; and Jerry Hausman and Ephraim Leibtag, “CPI Bias from Supercenters: Does the BLS Know That WalMart Exists?,” NBER Working Paper, August 2004.
30-32 Keeping Competition at Bay: The discussion of automakers’ employee discount plans comes from Meghan R. Busse, Duncan Simester, and Florian Zetelmeyer, “The Best Price You’ll Ever Get: The 2005 Employee Discount Pricing Promotions in the U.S. Automobile Industry,” NBER Working Paper, May 2007. The data on price dispersion at Israeli stores comes from