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Natural Selection to Veblen Goods

On the aptly named mailing list site The Mail Archive you'll find archives of a wide range of internet mailing lists, reminiscent of the old Deja News. This is a simple, yet elegant site that provides list owners with a central location to archive lists, and setting up your archive can be as simple as adding the site as a subscriber.

A suggested donation of $2 per month per archived list is optional, but that would be a bargain if you're looking for a low-cost way to manage and archive your public mailing list.

I found this site searching for a citation on the term Veblen Goods, which was found defined by a Brookings Institute professor, and debated in the Armchair list.

Another post in the same list discussed the article on using behavioral theory in economics (see We're Only Human) below. In picking out minor points to argue with assertions, the poster who commented on the article took a much different view than I toward the issue.

One of the key disconnects is that the opinion of the economist who wrote his opinion on the article didn't believe in "analysis paralysis," the condition where too many choices leads to a non-choice or a postponement of the choice. Unfortunately, this is a real phenomenon. Although "So what" sounds glib, the "what" is that purchases are often foregone or delayed due to the inability to choose.

Unfortunately, the variables economists have relied on to predict and direct consumer behavior have quit behaving predictably. I think if I were an economist, I might be defensive these days, too...