[lbo-talk] Economics drivel

[Christian Gregory]

The thing that the coop has is "low rent." But they aren't being asked how much they would exchange for it, as opposed to how much they would pay for it if they didn't already have it. Presumably, the cost of having high rent would be the high rent. The cost of having low rent would be, among other things, stuff such as location, quality of conditions, bureaucratic hassles etc. In Bill's scenario, the members of the coop would be getting marginally less-low rent, and getting more (in dollars) in return for it. That's dumb, but unless the low rent is taken away, and the coop members are then asked how much they would "pay" for it, and they wouldn't concede things like location, etc., then it doesn't seem to be the endowment effect.

Wishing I _had_ a pension to think about,

Christian