simardcasanova’s avatarsimardcasanova’s Twitter Archive—№ 18,435

              1. A 2 hours long queue in Paris for a baguette by an Instafamous baker The baguette is also twice the average price (2€ instead of 1€) My explanation is that this baguette is a Giffen good – but for which the price is the wait, not the price itself Mini-thread ⤵️ @actufrparis/1197831918932447232
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            1. …in reply to @simardcasanova
              A Giffen good is a good for which an increase of the price *increases* the demand Because those goods aren’t bought for themselves but to signal how rich the person who buy them is So the higher the price, the stronger the signal (Think any luxury good)
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          1. …in reply to @simardcasanova
            In a sense, the service provided by a Giffen good isn’t the good, it’s *the signal itself*
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        1. …in reply to @simardcasanova
          Buying this baguette (or anything sold in this bakery) is seen by some people as a signal of their coolness And the signal is even stronger when they waited two hours to buy it
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      1. …in reply to @simardcasanova
        This is why I think in this case the signal goes through the wait (which is costly) and not the price itself (which is costly too, but a 2€ baguette, while twice as expensive as the average one, can still be bought by almost everybody)
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    1. …in reply to @simardcasanova
      This wait is similar to the famous donut bakery in Portland (I visited it during my recent stay in Seattle*)
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  1. …in reply to @simardcasanova
    And the higher price is a side-product: if customers are ready to wait quite a long time to buy X, they probably don’t really care about the price (providing it’s affordable, and a 2€ is still affordable)
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    1. …in reply to @simardcasanova
      Does anyone know papers about Giffen goods for which the signal doesn’t go through the price but though something else? I would be interested to have a look!
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      1. …in reply to @simardcasanova
        *We saw the donut bakery but we decided quite easily not to go there
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        1. …in reply to @simardcasanova
          So the baguette is indeed nothing more than a regular baguette tradition, but "slightly smaller, for urbanites" (I quote, but even in French I have no idea what it means) lefigaro.fr/gastronomie/le-patissier-star-cedric-grolet-s-offre-l-opera-20191116
          oh my god twitter doesn’t include alt text from images in their API
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          1. …in reply to @simardcasanova
            Veblen, not Giffen @simardcasanova/1198706295123120129?s=21 @simardcasanova/1198706295123120129
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