02 - The Fallacy of Supply and Demand скачать в хорошем качестве

02 - The Fallacy of Supply and Demand

This chapter challenges the fundamental economic principle of supply and demand using a fascinating story: Salvador Assael, the "pearl king," transformed Tahitian black pearls from worthless objects into coveted jewels. How? He "anchored" them to the world's finest gems by displaying them at Harry Winston with exorbitant prices and advertisements in luxury magazines alongside diamonds and rubies. The trick was creating an initial value association, not based on actual demand, but on an arbitrary initial price. This phenomenon is called "anchoring." Ariely compares our brain to Konrad Lorenz's baby geese, which "imprint" on the first moving object they see (normally their mother, but in the experiment, Lorenz himself). Similarly, we accept the first price we encounter for a product as our permanent anchor. To demonstrate this, Ariely conducted a brilliant experiment with MIT students: he asked them to write the last two digits of their social security number and then decide if they would pay that amount in dollars for various products (wines, keyboards, chocolates, books). The results were astonishing: students with numbers ending in 80-99 bid between 216% and 346% MORE than those with numbers ending in 00-19, despite the number being completely random! A wireless keyboard: the high group offered $56 average, the low group $16. More importantly, the relative bids between related products (the better wine vs. the regular one, the keyboard vs. the trackball) were coherent, demonstrating "arbitrary coherence": although initial prices are arbitrary, once established, they shape not only the price of that product but of related products in a coherent way. Ariely also demonstrated that initial anchors persist over time. In experiments with annoying sounds (3,000 hertz, white noise, oscillations), participants exposed to an initial anchor of 10 cents continued demanding low payments even after being exposed to anchors of 50 and 90 cents. Those who started with 90 cents continued demanding high payments regardless of subsequent anchors. First impressions resonate through long sequences of decisions. The chapter introduces two key concepts of herd behavior: 1. **Herding**: Assuming something is good based on others' previous behavior (forming a line at a restaurant because others are waiting) 2. **Self-herding**: More insidious, assuming something is good based on our own previous behavior, forming a line behind ourselves The Starbucks example perfectly illustrates this: Your first visit to Starbucks is a price shock compared to Dunkin' Donuts, but you try it out of curiosity. The second time, instead of doing a rational analysis comparing quality, price, and convenience, you simply remember: "I went before and enjoyed it, so it must be a good decision." Thus you become the second person in your own line. With each subsequent visit, the habit reinforces, and soon you're "anchored" to Starbucks, escalating to larger sizes ($2.20 → $3.50 → $4.15) and more sophisticated drinks (Macchiato, Frappuccino) without questioning whether you really should spend that money. Uri Simonsohn and Loewenstein's research on city moves confirms the persistence of anchoring: people who move from cheap cities (Lubbock, Texas) to moderate cities (Pittsburgh) don't increase their housing spending to the new market level, remaining anchored to their previous prices. The same occurs in reverse: those who move from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh continue spending similar amounts on housing. The only way to break this anchor is to rent for a year to readjust to the local market. The profound implication is that "supply and demand" doesn't work as traditional economics assumes. Prices aren't determined purely by utility or scarcity, but can be arbitrarily established through clever marketing, and once we "imprint" on that initial price, it becomes our reality. Markets don't correct us; we perpetuate ourselves in patterns based on potentially arbitrary initial decisions.