Dani Rodrik most definitely is bonkers

Prodded by Ben Todd by other similar comments, I have decided the take a leaf out of Radiohead's book and give away 20 copies of my book at whatever price readers are willing to pay. Yes, that's right. You can have it for free if you want, or pay something (not to me but to Save the Children). It's really up to you!

So here is how this will work.

1. If you are interested in the book, send me a brief e-mail at drodrik@gmail.com giving me your name, postal address, and the amount you are willing to contribute to Save the Children in return for the book, if any.

2. You have until 5 am GMT on Wednesday (October 10) to send a request.

3. I will randomly select 10 from developed country residents and 10 from developing country residents among the requests submitted. To repeat, qualification does not depend on the amount you are willing to contribute (if any), just on submitting a request by the deadline. 

4. I will notify the winners of the lottery and send the book immediately to those who quote a zero "price." For those who promise to pay something, I will ask them to make their stated contribution to Save the Children at this link. Once they forward me the receipt, I will put the book in the mail. (Note that you can pay any amount at that link, even though the minimum pre-selected amount is $25. Just write in your own amount in the "other" box. I have checked that you can contribute even pennies; the computer at the other end does not know he difference.) I will sign the book if that is your preference.

5. Note that even though I ask you to state your bid before you know whether you will be successful in the lottery, you get to make your contribution (if any) only if you get the book for sure. You bear no cost for participating in the lottery.

6. If a promised contribution is not made within a reasonable time, I will randomly select a substitute from others in the list.

In the interest of complete information, you should know that I get 10 copies of these books for free from the publisher (Princeton University Press) and all additional copies at a 40% author's discount. I get a royalty on each copy sold (including to myself), but will have to pay a mailing cost when I send them out. Assuming these last two cancel each other out, the marginal cost of each of these books to me is about $21. The retail price of the book is $35.

Now some of you will be thinking "I know Radiohead. Radiohead is a friend of mine. Dani, you are no Radiohead." For sure. But I am also an economist who is curious about the distribution of willingness to pay that this experiment will generate.

I shall of course report the results of this exercise (without naming names), unless they are so embarrassing personally that I have to make something up.

So fire away!

Comments

[Greg Sanders]

I think you might be risking an additional factor to the experiment by donating the proceeds to charity.

Since we're achieving a good in exchange, I don't think we can count this as a charitable donation. But it still does kinda count for moral purposes. I know I first bought my Salon subscription when they were donating proceeds to Tsunami victims.

[robertdfeinman]

I've done something similar with my photographs. Every once in awhile I get a request to use one for some "worthwhile" purpose (once it was a farmer's cooperative, for example).

I send them the copy, but then tell them to take the negotiated fee and send it to a local charity of their choice. There are taken aback, but then "get it" and are pleased with the arrangement.

I'd participate, but I'm now in my post-materialist phase and don't buy books anymore. I take them out of the library. My local public library is pretty good about ordering books that aren't too obscure and interlibrary borrowing those that are.

This way I ensure that others are exposed to works I think are worth reading. I'll try this with Dani Rodrik's book and see how it works out. Surprisingly if I bought the book and donated it to the library they wouldn't accept it. Strange are the workings of some institutions.

(I'm being a bit unfair, the processing effort of a donation can make it more expensive then ordering the book from a supplier who prepares books for libraries.)

[contrarian]

(From a long time reader but first time contributor.)
One important difference between Radiohead's and Dani's experiments is the probability that information about one's behavior will shape our reputation. For example, unless Radiohead publishes a list of payments online or I am close friends with technical staff working for Radiohead, I do not risk having my contribution known. With Dani's payment system, since many blog-readers may hope to someday meet Dani, we may not want to signal to him our lack of altruism from a low payment (or conversely our irrationality from a large payment).

[Ryan]

Given the existence of 2 systems: a system where the items have a set value and another where people can pay any price but risk not being selected. It would seem to me that price sensitive people would be the ones to bid for the book while those who are less sensitive to prices would simply buy the book and not bother with the experiment except for jollies.

There is another element of altruism here that will throw things off as people offering money to Dani will be promoting their own ends through this measure, which is unlike most transactions.

I am not sure that most readers will be overly concerned about Dani's opinions though given that this is an experiment and he is a social scientist.

[Annette Richter]

Hi Dani,

I wanted your reaction to a free trade topic that is more political than economic- but interesting (at least to me).

Tomorrow (Sunday) Costa Rica is holding a referendum to get out of CAFTA. The White House's warning is "don't think you'll keep getting those preferential treatments under the Caribbean Basin Initiatives, which are running out next year" Message from house democrats seems to imply divorcing CAFTA from these benefits (so an implicit promise to keep up preferential treatment).

From my experience in Costa Rica- I can share that CAFTA is really unpopular there (traffic jam/ student protests/ 3am demonstrations unpopular).

So I just had to ask- on the topic of preferences- what do you think when an entire country articulates really strong preferences against free trade?

[wjd123]

I did a google search for more information on the Costa Rica referendum on CAFTA. I found it here:

http://www.coha.org/category/press-releases/

I've read nothing about the referendum. I didn't know it was happening today.

It's an important story. Why hasn't it been in our mainstream press?

That it has been buried is an excellent example of why people should get their news from the Internet.

[Per Kurowski]

Well I would gladly do the same thing with 20 ex. of my Voice and Noise and which I hereby put to Dani Rodrick’s disposal and I will wait for his list of which addresses to send them to. (Even though you might feel urged I will not cover any express delivery charges)

Now given market conditions and being myself only a humble MBA, from long ago and from far away, I need to be more flexible on the conditions and so I will send the book for free to the first 20 that actually commit to read (some chapters) of my Voice and Noise it and run the risk of being quizzed on a chapter of their choice. And I cross my fingers that I do not have to up my offer by giving them away to those who charge me the less for reading it.

[Mr. Todd]

why is it $35 on amazon, good lord!? thats a lot of cheerios.

eh i'll buy it anyway

[Ken Houghton]

Dang. Knew I should have been reading blogs this past couple of weeks.

I would certainly participate in Dr. Kurowski's offer, but would suggest that he convert some chapters into PDF format (the requesters could request specific chapters, based on Amazon's ToC listing) and require that requesters "earn" a full copy of the book by posting their discussion of the chapters requested, with a link to its blog (http://voiceandnoise.blogspot.com/).

At least, I suspect that would be the optimal distribution method. YMMV.