Why do people act the way they do? A recent law in Waynesboro Pennsylvania says that you can now buy beer on Sundays. So what do people do? They line up for miles to buy it that very next Sunday. Why didn't they just buy it on Saturday? I doubt that they all decided they needed a twelve pack of Corona on that Sunday with reason enough to go stand in lines to buy it. Why is it that as soon as the opportunity opens up people jump on it like it is going to be short-lived?
I'm not sure this has anything to do with Managerial Economics but maybe somebody can make a connection here.
The number of sales for beer the first hour on Sunday totaled more than some entire days. I bet a lot of people were pretty wasted that Sunday. Were people really craving the taste of beer or were they just influenced by the power of medias effect on supply and demand?
2 comments:
-2 on Destiny's post for a bad link, and for spelling errors.
I think this is a fine post. Explaining odd behavior like this is precisely what economics should be used for.
I don't have a lot of answers, but I can tell you what I'd call this. I'd say that beer demand has a high elasticity of novelty. Put people in a new situation, and they often do things they wouldn't do otherwise. This is why blue light specials were popular at K-Mart, grab bags at dollar stores, or even sales tax holidays.
Economics is pretty weak in this area, although people are working on it. Malcom Gladwell talks about this in his book "The Tipping Point". He describes this sort of thing as the message getting sticky. Ordinarily people wouldn't think to hard about when to buy beer. With occassional changes, they probably wouldn't pay much attention either. But something about this singular change made the message sticky - and everyone remembered to buy beer that day.
BTW: I highly recommend "The Tipping Point". It is a fun and easy read that will make you think a lot about the people around you.
^^^^^Who's the BadAss
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