Preise
24 cards from across every topic, each citing a source. Tap one to open it in the feed.
- A price is a message nobody wrote.
Friedrich Hayek described in 1945 why prices are more than numbers: when the price of tin rises, thousands of firms …
- A spinning wheel changes how many African UN states you guess.
In 1974 Tversky and Kahneman spun a rigged wheel that stopped at 10 or 65. Participants then estimated the share of …
- A string quartet still takes as long as it did 200 years ago.
William Baumol described it in 1966: in sectors where productivity barely rises, wages must still keep pace or workers …
- Burberry burned £28.6 million of stock rather than discount it.
In 2017/18 Burberry destroyed unsold clothes and perfume worth £28.6 million. The logic: for status goods, the high …
- Falling prices sound great. Economists fear them more than inflation.
If everything is cheaper tomorrow, you postpone buying. Firms sell less, cut prices, cut jobs, and everyone waits even …
- How a price emerges without anyone setting it.
If a price is too high, goods sit unsold and sellers lower it. If too low, shelves empty and buyers outbid each other. …
- How statisticians turn thousands of prices into one inflation number.
Statistical offices record the prices of hundreds of goods and services every month, from bread to haircuts. Each …
- How to find the unit at which a product starts earning.
Subtract only the variable cost per unit from your selling price – that is the contribution margin. Divide fixed costs …
- Inflation has two engines, and they need different brakes.
Demand-pull inflation happens when too much money chases too few goods, for instance after stimulus packages. Cost-push …
- No EU country may drop below 15 percent VAT.
The VAT Directive 2006/112 lets each member state pick its own rate but installs a floor: the standard rate must be at …
- Some things sell better once they get more expensive.
For Veblen goods, demand rises with price because the price is the product: it signals status. Thorstein Veblen …
- The crossed-out price must be the lowest of the last 30 days.
Since 28 May 2022, Germany's price indication rules require that any advertised price reduction be measured against the …
- The expensive products sit exactly where you're looking.
Supermarkets plan every shelf with so-called planograms. At eye level, roughly 120 to 160 cm, sit the highest-margin …
- The middle option only exists so you buy the big one.
With the decoy effect, a seller slips in a deliberately unattractive option. Small coffee €3, large €4.50: many pick …
- The pack costs the same, there's just less inside.
Shrinkflation is a hidden price increase: instead of raising the price, the maker reduces the contents. 200 g becomes …
- The printer is cheap. The ink costs more than champagne.
In the razor-and-blades model, the base device is sold cheaply or below cost and the money comes from consumables …
- The same flight costs something different tomorrow morning.
With dynamic pricing, an algorithm continuously adjusts prices to demand, time of day, remaining stock and competitors. …
- The small number on the shelf that exposes every price trick.
In the EU, retailers must show the unit price next to the selling price, meaning the price per kilogram, litre or …
- Who writes the cheque says nothing about who bears the tax.
Tax incidence separates the legal payer from the actual bearer. Whether a tax is levied on buyers or sellers does not …
- Why almost nothing costs €10 but everything costs €9.99.
Reading left to right, the first digit anchors most strongly. €9.99 gets stored by your brain as nine-something rather …
- Why petrol gets pricier without anyone filling up less.
Price elasticity measures how strongly demand reacts to price changes. For petrol, insulin or salt, people buy almost …
- Why the crossed-out price makes you buy.
The anchoring effect means the first number you see distorts your judgement. A €49 jumper seems expensive. Put a …
- Why the millionth unit costs almost nothing and the first a fortune.
A chip factory costs several billion euros whether it makes a thousand chips or a billion. Economies of scale: fixed …
- Why the supermarket sells butter at almost no profit.
A loss leader is a product the retailer deliberately sells at almost no margin. Butter, cola or nappies at rock-bottom …