Study Nights Just Got Better

For a few weeks now I've been holed up in the library every night cramming as much as I can to prepare for my PhD qualifying exams. I've been using our main library for a few years now but in recent days I've noticed a lot of attractive women here in the library. I chatted up the barista at the coffee shop (yes we have one in one of the floors here). According to him, sororities have this 'study nights' thing where they all troop to the library to study. I knew these sororities were good for something! I think this single-handedly increased the library use by the students. Men are trooping back to the libraries as well. How about that for positive externality? More power to sororities!

If they are so smart why do they go bankrupt?

I recently bought an airline ticket to FLL using the online discounter Hotwire.com. This ticket flies out of Atlanta (ATL) but connects thru Charlotte (CLT) then on to FLL. The effective discount was almost 50% if one compares the fare to a flight that flies out of CLT direct to FLL.

Since my city of residence is equidistant to both ATL or CLT, I wanted to skip the ATL to CLT leg and fly out of CLT to take advantage of cheaper parking rates. It turns out you can't do this according to both Hotwire.com and US Airways. Hotwire tells me that they have an agreement with airlines that if the passenger does not show up for the first leg of the flight, the rest of the itenerary is effectively cancelled.

How's that for an effective prevention of arbitrage? Why such a policy? The answer perhaps is because ATL is Delta's hub while CLT is a US Airways hub. Competiton forces US Airways to cut its fare when flying out of ATL. Monopoly power allows it to increase its fare at its hub. Point to point fliers like Southwest are slowly chipping away at this hub market power.

Petite and Plus Size Pricing

While visiting a weblog the other day, I read this comment about how petite size clothing are priced higher than regular size clothing. This is apparently true for the same store, and the same style. Another person who submitted her comment also observed that plus size clothing are also priced higher than regular sizes. They were wondering why the stores don't just price all the sizes the same since they add that the regular size clothing are the only sizes that get marked down during a sale.

The only reason I can think of is that stores price discriminate because the intensity of demand for different size people are not the same. Regular size people are more price sensitive because they have other alternatives (store brands know this and thus price competitively so they wont shop elsewhere). Petite and plus size customers are not as price sensitive because it's hard for them to find their size so store can charge them more.

It's like airline tickets, higher price for business fliers (they fly on short notice and buy last minute), lower for tourists (they plan way ahead, bargain hunt, and buy early).

The First Post

Economists say there is no such thing as a free lunch but here it is :) Welcome to my new weblog. Hopefully I will be able to post a lot of good stuff here when I get more free time.