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Episode 6 takes up the question of "matching," and the transaction costs of dating and marriage.  Some resources: 

Ashley Madison:  "Is It Real?"

Garrison Keillor, "We are Still Married"

Michael Munger, on "Calculation" and socialist economics, at AIER

Michael Munger and Russ Roberts, on "Econtalk: WIld Problems" 

Tyler Cowen and Russ Roberts, on "Making Your Own Economy"

Intellectual Property and the Problem of the Anti-Commons

Background on search cost and optimal stopping:

• Secretary Problem I
• Secretary Problem II

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Episode 5: Notes and Sources 

Vaughn Baltzly, "Publicized Goods, or the Promiscuity of the Public Goods Argument."   https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/economics-and-philosophy/article/abs/concerning-publicized-goods-or-the-promiscuity-of-the-public-goods-argument/DE16529B673600C47C22B59C87D198A9 

Bruce Benson, "Are Roads Public Goods?"
https://www.springerprofessional.de/en/are-roads-public-goods-club-goods-private-goods-or-common-pools/11240720

Daniel Klein, KNOWLEDGE AND COORDINATION.   https://www.amazon.com/Knowledge-Coordination-Interpretation-Daniel-Klein/dp/019979412X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324300010&sr=8-1 

Thomas Schelling, THE STRATEGY OF CONFLICT.  http://elcenia.com/iamapirate/schelling.pdf 

"Are Roads Really Public Goods?"  https://fee.org/articles/are-roads-really-public-goods/

"Economists on Federal Funding for NPR." National Public Radio, PLANET MONEY.  https://www.npr.org/transcripts/134863998 

"The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion."  https://cityobservatory.org/the-fundamental-global-law-of-road-congestion/ 

"Tolls on the Connecticut Turnpike."   https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-10-10-mn-15553-story.html 

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Does Starbucks have surge pricing?

What is a Mancgere?

Should the Stomach go to the Wheat, or should the Wheat come to the Stomach?

Plus, the TWEJ!

Some things discussed this week:

Michael Munger, "Market Makers or Parasites" https://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2009/Mungermiddlemen.html

Frederic Bastiat, WHAT IS SEEN AND UNSEEN. https://www.econlib.org/book-chapters/chapter-chapter-1-what-is-seen-and-what-is-not-seen/

Frederic Bastiat, "The Negative Railroad." https://www.libertarianism.org/publications/essays/negative-railroad

David Friedman, HIDDEN ORDER.   http://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/2041/1/47.pdf.pdf 

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The third episode for TAITC: First, we take up the question of traffic congestion. Then, does the transaction cost approach have a relationship with moral and ethical theory?

Resources:
Econtalk: Traffic  https://www.econtalk.org/michael-munger-on-traffic/
Roger Congleton Book  Solving Social Dilemmas
Coase and Epstein: Intellectual Portrait Series, Liberty Fund
John R. Commons, 1931, American Economic Review
Ronald Coase, 1937, Economica
Oliver Williamson, Transaction Cost Economics
Douglass North, Institutions

And of course the TWEJ

The letter, for this week, from Anonymous: Does Starbucks have surge pricing? Once you realize that TAITC, then of course they do. 

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Why would sellers go to a "place" where many others are also selling the same product? Wouldn't it better to go someplace off by yourself, so you can get the monopoly price? Well, the answer is that transactions"take place," meaning they require a context. Amazingly, it's better to go where all the other sellers are going, because of the problems of triangulation, transfer, and trust.  The Sears catalog was a "virtual" (paper) place, and Amazon is another "virtual" (online) place. But the answer to why we do that is "transaction costs."

But then I go back in time to my own introduction to the notion of transaction costs, in a class taught by the remarkable economist Yoran Barzel. The puzzle is so simple that it seems dumb: why do we measure lettuce by the head, meat by the pound, and diamonds by the caret?

Yoram Barzel, Measurement Cost and the Organization of Markets.
The Journal of Law & Economics, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Apr., 1982), pp. 27-48
https://www.jstor.org/stable/725223

Brian Albrecht, Brian Albrecht at Int Cent for Law and Econ
https://pricetheory.substack.com/p/are-transaction-costs-just-costs

Plus, the TWEJ!

And our first letter, as a homework assignment.

Are congestion taxes an effective way to overcome transactions costs pertaining to efficient use of roads?  Probably not the best.  There is no externality with congestion, because everyone stuck in traffic has moved to the harm. Those who could be held liable for causing congestion are not those who pay for a variable toll, but those who come later.

We'll talk about this in Week 3!

If you have questions or comments, or want to suggest a future topic, email the show at [email protected] !

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The introductory episode for TAITC: "The Answer is Transaction Costs!"  The new weekly podcast from Duke University's Mike Munger (http://michaelmunger.com)

If you have questions or comments, or want to suggest a future topic, email the show at [email protected] !

If you have questions or comments, or want to suggest a future topic, email the show at [email protected] !

You can follow Mike Munger on Twitter at @mungowitz