{"id":7684,"date":"2009-10-27T10:04:37","date_gmt":"2009-10-27T15:04:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=7684"},"modified":"2009-10-27T10:04:37","modified_gmt":"2009-10-27T15:04:37","slug":"does-the-ayres-study-work-in-istanbul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2009\/10\/does-the-ayres-study-work-in-istanbul\/","title":{"rendered":"Does the Ayres Study Work in Istanbul?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"istanbul\"As I wrote about last week<\/a>, I was at a negotiation conference in Istanbul\u00a0in which\u00a0participants were given assignments\u00a0to negotiate in the Spice Market.\u00a0 Melissa Manwaring,\u00a0who used to work with\u00a0the Program on Negotiation and is now a professor at Babson College,\u00a0came up with the great idea of each person from her group of five\u00a0going into a shop and asking for the price of the same item to see if there were significant differences.\u00a0 Think of this as the Ayres study on car dealerships done in Turkey over jewelry boxes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In\u00a0Ian Ayres\u2019 famous\u00a0study <\/a>of car dealerships in Chicago, it appeared that white men got the best (lowest) opening price for their cars, while black women got the worst opening bids.\u00a0 In Melissa\u2019s group, there was\u00a0a wonderful mix of an older white male American (Howard Gadlin), Melissa herself (white female younger American), a young ethnic Chinese man (Andrew Lee), and two native Turkish speakers, so this was a great gender and ethnic mix to test.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

It turns out that this group found exactly the opposite of what Ayres found.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Each person went in to ask about\u00a0the jewelry box over the course of an hour.\u00a0 The one potential failing of the test which they did not realize until later was that they dealt with different salespeople, so one of the differences could be the salesperson.\u00a0 (This was\u00a0not controlled for in the Ayres study, either.)\u00a0 Results found by this group for the jewelry box:<\/p>\n

Older white male\u201455 lira<\/p>\n

Younger white female\u201445 lira<\/p>\n

Young Asian male\u201430 lira<\/p>\n

Turkish speaking females\u201425 lira<\/p>\n

Although there are potentially many explanations\u00a0— Melissa tried to ask the seller about this afterwards but to no avail —\u00a0I have a few.\u00a0 My guesses are based on my own interview with a different seller (our group of three talked for a long time to a different vendor of lights and scarves after\u00a0one colleague\u00a0went in to ask about a light and was quoted 150 lira, which\u00a0our\u00a0Turkish colleague\u00a0then purchased for her at 50 lira).\u00a0 Once we finished the purchase, we asked the indulgence of this wonderful guy who talked to us over tea for over an hour about his experiences in the market.\u00a0 He was also an American citizen who had lived in San Francisco for\u00a0ten years.\u00a0 Based on the conversation with him, the vendors\u00a0know that Americans don\u2019t like to bargain and will only bargain for a round or two of counteroffers.<\/p>\n

So, here is my thinking on Melissa\u2019s experiment.\u00a0 First, the store owner assumed that the older male had more money.\u00a0 Second, the store owner assumed he would not bargain all that much (this would actually be somewhat similar to one of Ayres\u2019 hypotheses on lack of BATNA or ability to bargain.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Melissa, who went in next, may well have gotten \u201cthe nice eyes\u201d discount.\u00a0 As explained by our store owner,\u00a0he often will give a lower price to a smiling, nice-looking buyer.\u00a0 (Note to self: reapply lipstick before going into bazaars.)\u00a0 Melissa also thought that the seller could have assumed she would have less money to spend.\u00a0 Andrew Lee, the recipient of the 30 lira price, thought that perhaps the seller assumed he had very little money \u2014 he was casually dressed and\u00a0young, and there are not slews of wealthy Asians coming through Istanbul.\u00a0 (According to our store owner, the wealthiest tourists come from the Gulf states.)\u00a0 Finally, as expected, there is the local price \u2013 and this similarity factor, more than the discriminatory factors discussed in the Ayres study, seemed to have the most to do with the opening price.<\/p>\n

Cross posted at Indisputably<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I wrote about last week, I was at a negotiation conference in Istanbul\u00a0in which\u00a0participants were given assignments\u00a0to negotiate in the Spice Market.\u00a0 Melissa Manwaring,\u00a0who used to work with\u00a0the Program on Negotiation and is now a professor at Babson College,\u00a0came up with the great idea of each person from her group of five\u00a0going into a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-negotiation","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7684\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}