There's a review in this morning's Financial Times of The Price of Everything: Solving the Mystery of Why We Pay What We Do by Eduardo Porter. I hadn't heard of this one before – it gets only a mildly positive review from Martin Sandbu. He picks out one chapter as best, 'The Price of Free', covering intangibles and zero marginal cost products, which is of course a fascinating question.

In day-to-day competition policy, a rule of thumb is that you can distinguish competitive from non-competitive markets depending on whether the executives in hearings say they set prices depending on costs or depending on 'what the market will bear'. In the end, economics falls back on the latter – prices paid are a demonstration of revealed preference. People will only pay as much as something is worth to them. Which is both true and – like Freudian interpretations of behaviour – inescapable and therefore banal. It all depends what you mean by 'worth'….

I am off now to the American Economic Association Meetings in Denver, where I hope to meet lots of top economists and gather blog-worthy material. Here is the description of my own session with Robert Frank, Steven Levitt and Robert Shiller. Meanwhile, no new posts here until I get back on Monday.