Wednesday, July 26, 2006

An Undercover Economist acting with zero Marginal Cost

One of the better sections of Tim Harford's "The Undercover Economist" concerns the behaviour of people confronting zero marginal cost.
I put my wife and me into that situation somewhat deliberately on our recent trip by buying an Oslo Pass. I did not do this because I thought it was necessarily a good deal - I did it to force us into behaving in a way to make it a good deal.
It essentially made travel to and from, and admission to, museums and the like, free to us. And guess what we did? We ran ourselves ragged visiting sites included in the package. We even wound up in places we hated (the Munch Museum was particularly revolting). Harford's discussion features students drinking, but our comitment to museums was not dissimilar.
But we also did more intensive tourism that I have ever done anywhere. I think this is my new strategy for visiting new cities.

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