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You gotta love this book just from its title: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (Levitt & Dubner, 2005). These articles, and studies, and books, and journals following the trend, are addressing the implications of a globalised economy increasingly founded on the exchange of intangibles. That’s one of the reasons everyone is crazy about brands and branding, the whole love-marks thing. And that’s why we find perfectly rational economists talking about sumo wrestlers and drug gangs.
The equation of classical economics, that markets will always seek equilibrium between demand and supply, only works when we’re all making rational choices all the time. And we don’t, we just don’t. Tag something in your product range with the word ‘FREE!’ and see what happens.
