Thanks for the thoughtful comment, Sawyer. I agree that haggling can be zero sum in many (though not all) cases, and I understand the sentiment of your note.
In my personal experience, haggling hasn’t felt particularly adversarial or deceptive. It feels less like the Pawn Stars guy ripping off antiquers, and more like marketing, campaign finance, professional poker, standardized test prep, quant trading, or another type of legal and socially acceptable form of working for a bigger piece of a fixed pie.
I think Robi raises a good point. Despite transaction costs, I would guess that haggling creates societal surplus on net by enabling more trades. In much (maybe most) of the world, haggling for daily goods is common; I’ve been a fly on the wall at outdoor markets in a handful of LMICs, and my impression is that haggling helps customers and vendors send valuable signals about their willingness to buy/sell.
This isn’t exactly getting at what you wrote, but I feel uncomfortable negotiating when my counterparty seems like they need the money. E.g., if a taxi driver in another country quotes a “tourist” price where it’s pretty clear that locals would haggle and I’m (literally) getting taken for a ride, I pay sticker.
When it comes to contracts with a San Francisco landlord, a big university, or DocuSign, I feel motivated to haggle. Not because I see my counterparty as “the bad guy”, but because haggling is a standard practice following social norms that helps me direct more resources to important projects making the world a better place.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment, Sawyer. I agree that haggling can be zero sum in many (though not all) cases, and I understand the sentiment of your note.
In my personal experience, haggling hasn’t felt particularly adversarial or deceptive. It feels less like the Pawn Stars guy ripping off antiquers, and more like marketing, campaign finance, professional poker, standardized test prep, quant trading, or another type of legal and socially acceptable form of working for a bigger piece of a fixed pie.
I think Robi raises a good point. Despite transaction costs, I would guess that haggling creates societal surplus on net by enabling more trades. In much (maybe most) of the world, haggling for daily goods is common; I’ve been a fly on the wall at outdoor markets in a handful of LMICs, and my impression is that haggling helps customers and vendors send valuable signals about their willingness to buy/sell.
This isn’t exactly getting at what you wrote, but I feel uncomfortable negotiating when my counterparty seems like they need the money. E.g., if a taxi driver in another country quotes a “tourist” price where it’s pretty clear that locals would haggle and I’m (literally) getting taken for a ride, I pay sticker.
When it comes to contracts with a San Francisco landlord, a big university, or DocuSign, I feel motivated to haggle. Not because I see my counterparty as “the bad guy”, but because haggling is a standard practice following social norms that helps me direct more resources to important projects making the world a better place.