EconAir

EconAir is an economics and political blog containing about 200 essays and posts written mostly by Bennett Greenberg, a retired professor of economics with experience teaching across the full undergraduate economics curriculum as well as related disciplines such as economic history, business strategy, finance, and political economy. Experience includes economist and corporate planning manager for three S&P 500 companies, consultant to small businesses, brokering a large acquisition, managing director of a small company, and board member of five nonprofits. Since retirement, also interested in political and economic lessons from history. The central theme of this blog is that innovation and information are the driving forces of economic development, economic growth, competition, and market structure. Modern capitalism is best understood as a dynamic process, not a static system of markets tending toward some hypothetical equilibrium. The Industrial and Digital Rev...

  INFORMATION AND ECONOMIC THEORY A key strategy for corporate growth and development is innovation.    Innovation generates proprietary information, company-specific knowledge, and new technology.    A company’s products and services embody past innovation and the sum of proprietary information.    One of the assumptions of the perfect competition model is complete information.    All participants in a market know all relevant information.    As discussed in an earlier tutorial,  Introduction to Information and Economic Structure , this assumption is unrealistic in an imperfectly competitive economy dominated by large corporations. Proprietary information that cannot be duplicated by other companies allows a company to differentiate its products and services from those of other companies. Differentiated products and services reduce competition from other companies and limit the ability of a supplier or customer to play off one...

  One of the biggest shifts since 2013 is that a majority (52%, up from 39%) now say they are “willing to spend extra for a brand with an image that appeals to me.” Ipsos,  Global Trends, September 19, 2025. STARTING POINT Pareto's Law, the 80/20 rule, is the starting point for marketing and price discrimination. As discussed in a related post on basic concepts, Pareto's Law says, among other things, that a relatively small percent of customers account for a relatively large percent of sales and profits. One reason is the concentration of income and wealth. Recent studies indicate increasing concentration of income and wealth in the United States. A company's choice of target market and market niches is critical to marketing and pricing strategy.   CONTENTIONS Pricing is a strategy, not something a company accepts or beyond its control. Price discrimination is one pricing  strategy. Price discrimination can be practice by individual companies or all compa...