Why Popcorn Costs So Much at the Movies: And Other Pricing Puzzles

• How Prices Matter rices are ubiquitous, so much so that their importance to the smooth operation of a market economy (even one constrained by extensive polit- P ical controls as is the case in China) can go unnoticed and unheralded. Prices are what all trades, whether at the local mall or across the globe, are built around. Tey facilitate trades among buyers and sellers who don’t know each other, meaning they make less costly, or more socially benefcial, the allocation and redistribution ...