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Monday 5 October
1 · The text
Why dear things sell
A Paris grocer asks forty francs for February asparagus and explains why the price is the point. Two Englishmen prove her right a minute later.
1 min · Brillat-Savarin · The Physiology of Taste · tr. Fayette Robinson · 1854 translation · public domain
Passing one day in February, by the Palais Royal, I paused before the shop of Mme Chevet, the largest dealer in comestibles in Paris, who always wished me well. Seeing a large box of asparagus, the smallest of which was large as my finger, I asked the price. "Forty francs," said she. "They are very fine, but only a king or prince could eat at such a rate." "You are wrong sir," said she, "such things never go to palaces, but I will sell the asparagus.
"There are now in this city at least three hundred rich men, capitalists and financiers, retained at home by gout, colds, and doctors. They are always busy to ascertain what will revive them and send their valets out on voyages of discovery. Some one of them will remark this asparagus, and it will be bought. It may be, some pretty woman will pass with her lover, and say, 'what fine asparagus. How well my servant dresses it.' The lover then does not hesitate, and I will tell you a secret, that dear things are sold more easily than cheap ones."
As she spoke two fat Englishmen passed us. They seemed struck at once. One seized hold of the asparagus and without asking the price paid for it, and as he walked away whistled "God save the King."
"Monsieur," said Madame Chevet, "a thousand things like this happen every day."
2 · One idea · Behavioural economics
The endowment effect
Hand a coffee mug to half the students in a room. Then let them trade.
In a famous version of this experiment, published in 1990 by Daniel Kahneman, Jack Knetsch and Richard Thaler, almost nobody traded. The students who had been given a mug asked more than twice as much to sell it as the others would pay to buy one.
Nothing about the mugs was different. The only difference was which side of the table they were on.
Owning a thing, even for a few minutes, makes it feel worth more.
In one line. The endowment effect is our tendency to value something more simply because we own it. The price at which people will sell a thing they hold is reliably higher than the price they’d pay to buy the same thing — ownership itself adds value that isn’t really there.
Worked example
In a classic study, students given a mug demanded about twice as much to sell it as other students were willing to pay to buy the identical mug. The only difference was who happened to be holding it.
How to use it, and where it fails3 · One number
Average years of schooling, ages 15–64, world
19503.0 years
20208.8 years
2.9 times the 1950 level.
Years in school are not the same as learning, but they are where learning usually starts.
Source: Our World in Data, world estimates, read 2026-09-24.