A few days ago I discussed ticket scalping. Today Grand Junction Free Press published an article by my dad and me that looks at the economics of scalping: “World Series ticket meltdown a boon for scalpers.”
“… What would happen if, absent any other change, every grocer suddenly cut the price of oranges in half? Or what if everybody suddenly fell in love with oranges, but grocers barely raised prices? More people would buy oranges, until the oranges ran out. Maybe some of those lucky enough to buy oranges early in the day would ‘scalp’ their oranges for more than ‘face value.’ Or maybe grocers would institute a lottery system, so that shoppers could have a fair shot at buying cheap oranges.
“But why don’t the grocers simply raise the price of oranges until shoppers choose to limit their purchases to existing supplies? …”