If you’re interested, you can watch or listen to the Cato Forum on Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler’s Nudge here. My comments are last, after Sunstein and Chorvat’s.

I hate it. I am terrible at it. As a consequence, I bought nothing in Turkey other than tickets to various things, room, food, and a poster of Ataturk. And I overpaid for all of these things, I’m sure, which has left me a bit bitter about the place. Surely this is inefficient overall, no? I understand the price discrimination argument for haggling, especially in a country with a lot of poverty and tourism. But probably hundreds of my dollars stayed in my pocket because I didn’t have good information about the quality of products and I knew the retailer is better at bargaining over the surplus than I am, so… there was no transaction and no surplus. Sure, there is a lot of successful gouging going on, but add up millions of instances of “I know you’re going to screw me,” and I suspect that the average retailer is doing worse rather than better under the haggling system. And how about the average native consumer? In competitive posted-price markets, the system basically pre-haggles the price down to the point where the consumer gets most of the surplus. This is why Wal-Mart is a humanitarian triumph, and a shining symbol of civilization. In the world of Wal-Mart, when it comes to divvying up the surplus from exchange, the retailer has very little freedom to try to take you to the cleaners, but profits by assuring you that you will win the argument.

We got back yesterday afternoon, after a layover in Vienna. Austrian efficiency turned out to be a refreshing contrast to the customary Turkish goat rodeo. I’ll have a few posts this week inspired by thoughts about Turkey.

Yesterday Kerry and I rented a ridiculously large boat with a crew of two in the little fishing village of Selimiye, near the point where the Aegean meets the Mediterranean. They took us around to little islands off the coast and to good swimming spots. The water, as you can see, is astonishingly clear and, in the shallows, is the color they paint the bottom swimming pools, I guess to make them look like the Aegean. The highlight of the trip was our time exploring a small island containing the ruins of a Greek Christian monastary, now inhabited only by a herd of goats and a lonely donkey.

Today, we’re in Pammukale, which is weird and awesome. Kerry’s got a pic.

Kusadasi, Turkey