Stories from the books

Short pieces from Everything Has a Price, one surprising story of economics at a time.

• Why does a diamond cost more than water?Water keeps you alive and costs almost nothing. A diamond does nothing for you and costs a fortune. It took economics a century to explain why.
• Two cities, one fence, three times the incomeNogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora, share the weather, the land, and even the families. Average income on the north side is three times higher. Why?
• The barter story you learned in school has a problemFish for grain, then money to fix the mess. When anthropologists went looking for the barter economy in that story, they could not find one.