Another armchair economist made the news! Robin (Hanson) was
mentioned in yesterday's (Sunday Feb. 10, 2002) New York Times in an
interesting article about using experimental markets to generate
marketing information. In an experiment conducted at MIT, for example,
traders traded aspects of ski resorts such as crowdedness and distance
to the slopes. The prices established in these markets were then used
to estimate the demand for various attributes and to thus help firms
optimize accordingly - in essence an experimental approach to deriving
hedonic prices.
The article is available here
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/10/business/yourmoney/10TRAD.html
Following Hayek's Use of Knowledge in Society paper, economists
have become accustomed to extracting information from markets but the
creation of markets in order to generate information is more recent.
Creating markets in order to generate public policy information is the
subject of Robin's contribution to Entrepreneurial Economics: Bright
Ideas from the Dismal Science (see also my introduction to the book for
further applications). More info on EntrepreneurialEconomics can be
found here:
www.EntrepreneurialEconomics.org
Alex
--
Dr. Alexander Tabarrok
Vice President and Director of Research
The Independent Institute
100 Swan Way
Oakland, CA, 94621-1428
Tel. 510-632-1366, FAX: 510-568-6040
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
