Colleges And Universities Try To Be Like Hogwarts. What Would Carl Jung Say?

Originally posted in 2009.

There was an article in the New York Times recently about how schools tell prospective students how they are just like Hogwarts. It was Taking the Magic Out of College by By LAUREN EDELSON. Here are some things she mentioned about her visits to colleges:

"[at one school they play] a flightless version of J. K. Rowling’s Quidditch game — broomsticks and all."

"So I was surprised when many top colleges delivered the same pitch. It turns out, they’re all a little bit like Hogwarts — the school for witches and wizards in the “Harry Potter” books and movies. Or at least, that’s what the tour guides kept telling me."

"During a Harvard information session, the admissions officer compared the intramural sports competitions there to the Hogwarts House Cup. The tour guide told me that I wouldn’t be able to see the university’s huge freshman dining hall as it was closed for the day, but to just imagine Hogwarts’s Great Hall in its place."

"At Dartmouth, a tour guide ushered my group past a large, wood-paneled room filled with comfortable chairs and mentioned the Hogwarts feel it was known for. At another liberal arts college, I heard that students had voted to name four buildings on campus after the four houses in Hogwarts: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Slytherin."

"[In] Cornell’s fall 2009 quarterly magazine, [it says] that a college admissions counseling Web site had counted Cornell among the five American colleges that have the most in common with Hogwarts. Both institutions, you see, are conveniently located outside cities. The article ended: “Bring your wand and broomstick, just in case.”"

"I’m not the only one who has noticed this phenomenon. One friend told me about Boston College’s Hogwartsesque library, another of Colby’s “Harry Potter”-themed dinner party. And like me, my friends have no problem with college students across the country running around with broomsticks between their legs, trying to seize tennis balls stuffed into socks (each one dubbed a snitch) that dangle off the backs of track athletes dressed in yellow.""

In the same issue of the NY Times, there was a review of a book by the famous psychologist Carl Jung. The review was titled The Symbologist by KATHRYN HARRISON. The book by Jung is titled THE RED BOOK: Liber Novus. One of the passages from the book was was about Jung's belief in the "deep subliminal connections between individual fantasies and world events."

Mixing fantasy and reality. Sounds like what these colleges and universities are doing by comparing themselves to Hogwarts

An Increase in Uninsured Drivers Is Pushing Up Costs for Everyone Else

Number of drivers without car insurance has risen since the start of the pandemic

By Kailyn Rhone of The WSJ. 

This is another post about how people are dealing with inflation. There are links to related posts below. Excerpts from the article:

"More Americans are driving without car insurance, and it’s making coverage more expensive for everyone else."

"The problem has been growing since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the Insurance Research Council, whose latest data show the percentage of uninsured drivers rose to 14% in 2022, from about 11% in 2019."

"When more cash-strapped consumers drop their coverage, it reduces the premium pool, which causes many insurers to raise the prices of their policies. The average annual cost of full-coverage car insurance has jumped to $2,278, up 12% from 2023, according to Bankrate.

Although many of the drivers dropping coverage say they are also battling rising costs for groceries, housing and healthcare, others are rolling the dice and betting they won’t need it.

More Americans appear to be unhappy with their current policies. The number of consumers shopping for car insurance surged in May to the highest level since 2020"

"In all states but New Hampshire, driving without coverage is illegal"

"Policyholders paid $16 billion for uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage in 2020, according to the IRC. That is up from $13 billion in 2016. Such policies protect the holder and their car against drivers who are uninsured or whose insurance doesn’t fully cover the cost of an accident."

Related posts:

Costco and Sam’s Club Aisles Are Full of Gen Z Shoppers (2024)

Consumers are buying in bulk to save money by getting a lower per unit price

Inflation is mentally taxing (2024)

Inflation is mentally taxing. Dealing with a straitened budget exacts a psychological toll as well as a financial one

Store Brands Are Filling Up More of Your Shopping Cart (2024) 

People are on the look out for cheaper alternatives due to inflation

Consumers Fed Up With Food Costs Are Ditching Big Brands (2024) 

One thing that I always talked about with inflation was that one of its costs was all the things we had to do to avoid it. Consumers are making 8% more trips to different retailers as inflation continues to upend household budgets. They are going to more stores to find lower prices. But it costs time to do that and probably more money on gas.

Are Americans Worrying Too Much About Inflation? Two opposing views (2024)

The Era of One-Stop Grocery Shopping Is Over (2024)

When workers were paid twice a day and given half-hour shopping breaks (Germany, 1923) 

By mid-1923 workers were being paid as often as three times a day. Their wives would meet them, take the money and rush to the shops to exchange it for goods. However, by this time, more and more often, shops were empty. Storekeepers could not obtain goods or could not do business fast enough to protect their cash receipts. Farmers refused to bring produce into the city in return for worthless paper. The requirements to calculate and recalculate commercial transactions in the billions and trillions made it practically impossible to do business in paper Marks.

FTC to Examine if Companies Raise Prices Using Consumer Surveillance

Agency is seeking information from eight companies about the use of AI and other tools to customize prices based on shoppers’ individual traits

By Dave Michaels & Inti Pacheco of The WSJ. 

One issue in this article is price discrimination. After some excerpts, I will discuss what price discrimination is, how it can increase profit and why it is not necessarily a bad thing.

"The Federal Trade Commission is seeking information about how artificial intelligence and other technological tools may allow companies to vary prices using data they collect about individual consumers’ finances and shopping habits.

The FTC said its study aims to reveal the inner workings of personalized pricing, a way of varying prices down to the individual level that has long been the holy grail of marketing. The commission says the algorithms and models that drive pricing strategies are opaque and may rely on surveilling consumers’ online footprints."

"Revionics said that its software recommends optimal pricing to retailers but doesn’t use any individual consumer data. Its software can recommend price decreases as well, the company said. A Mastercard spokesman said the company was reviewing the FTC’s request and would cooperate with the inquiry. Other companies that received the FTC’s request didn’t respond to messages seeking comment."

"Price discrimination among different consumer groups is a common strategy in marketing. Companies try to maximize profits by offering prices that are acceptable to different groups of consumers, defined by attributes such as age, socio-economic status and their affinity for certain goods and services.

But online advertising and data analytics have made it easier to target smaller groups of consumers. The FTC’s reference to “surveillance pricing” suggests it believes that consumers don’t understand how their personal information may be used to tailor prices to them. 

Some of the FTC’s concern stems from the growth of a similar concept, dynamic pricing, which allows companies such as grocery stores and fast-food restaurants to quickly vary prices during busy periods. Consumers have rebelled against dynamic-pricing in some contexts, such as when fast-food operator Wendy’s considered it, but it has long been used by airlines, hotels and ride-hailing services."

"Executives at retailers such as Lowe’s, Kroger and GoodRx have talked about using consumer data to deliver personalized pricing to shoppers. The companies said they mostly do so by offering discounts through loyalty programs. 

Lowe’s finance chief Brandon Sink said last month during a conference that the goal of the company’s DIY loyalty program is to increase repeat visits to its stores and to be able to market products on a more personalized basis." 

Businesses can make more money if they charge different prices to different buyers instead of just one price to everyone.

Charging different prices to different groups of customers based on their ability and willingness to pay (a discount) is price discrimination. Buyers with a lower price elasticity of demand will be charged a higher price.

If the firm were to charge the same price to each group, they would actually make less profit since they would end up violating the rule which says "choose Q so that marginal revenue (MR) = marginal cost (MC)."

Suppose a firm has two groups of customers, A and B, shown below. Group A's demand is generally less elastic. The blue line is demand. Green is MR. The flat line is both MC and ATC (average total cost). Having ATC = MC is not realistic but it simplifies the explanation.

The darker red lines just show us how to find P and Q for each group. Profit is Q*(P - ATC).




Now group B


Group A profit) 8*(24 - 8) =128

Group B profit) 12*(20 - 8) = 144

Total profit = 128 + 144 = 272

What if they charge both groups 22?

Group A profit) 9*(22 - 8) =126  (at Q = 9, MR does not equal MC)

Group B profit) 10*(22 - 8) = 140 (at Q = 10, MR does not equal MC)

Total profit = 126 + 140 = 266

So there is less profit (266) if they charge the same price to each group than if the price discriminate (272).

Economist Robert P. Murphy gives an example of how there is nothing wrong with price discrimination:

"the granting of special pricing for certain groups need not harm the groups paying full freight.

For example, if a movie theater in a small town were barred from giving child, student, and senior discounts — and instead had to charge one ticket price for all customers — it might not be able to stay in business. It would hardly help the middle-aged adults to have a "fair" pricing policy with no theater in town. This example shows the pitfalls in thinking about "the cost" of providing a seat in a movie theater and deriving the "fair" price that a theater ought to charge all customers."

See The Economics of Coupons and Other Price Cuts

Also see Price Discrimination by Tejvan Pettinger. A key passage is:

"Price discrimination will enable some firms to stay in business who otherwise would have made a loss. For example price discrimination is important for train companies who offer different prices for peak and off-peak. Without price discrimination, they may go out of business or be unable to provide off-peak services."

Tyler Cowen said

"The point of price discrimination is to sell more goods and services while taking in more profit; the low demanders can pay a lower price, yet the company still sells for a higher price to the high demanders.  If output goes up, social welfare usually does too."

See Progressive taxation as price discimination. 

Also

"The web has also, notes Cowen, facilitated price discrimination, which typically gives low prices to people with low time values. Since time values and income are highly positively correlated, price discrimination “is usually an egalitarian development.”"

See A Love Letter to Tyler Cowen by David R. Henderson.