In many ways, my world view has permanently changed after my visits to India and China this year. One way in which it has changed has been in my willingness to bargain. Having grown up in a world of fixed prices, I have tended to approach consumption as a search for the right value-price combination. The bargaining over everything that happens in India and China can be exhausting, but it has the potential for deal creation that is missing in a fixed price setting.

This occurred to me this weekend while I was shopping for a hotel room in Weggis, Switzerland on the Vierwaldstättersee. We must have stopped at five or six hotels, looking for the right combination of size and price. Every hotel had open rooms that were acceptable and the prices varied in a range of about 30 percent. All of the rooms were too expensive, in my view, so from the very beginning, I began suggesting lower prices. Only at the last hotel (of course ... it would not have been the last otherwise) did the manager agree to lower the price. And he got our money.

Hotels practice discriminatory pricing. This is the whole basis for Hotels.com's advertising campaign, which shows some people feeling stupid when they learn that they have paid too much for a room. Why the hotel managers I encountered in Switzerland were so reluctant to bargain is a bit puzzling to me. Were other prospective customers likely to appear and to pay the fixed price? Not likely, since I was shopping fairly late in the day. Were they concerned that other potential customers would become aware of the discount and demand one for themselves? Also unlikely, since such detailed price information does not circulate very effeciently among hotel customers. Of course, consumers may simply learn to always ask for a discount. If only one hotel is involved, it seems unlikely that sufficient numbers of past and prospective customers would actually get together and make an impact.

Here is an interesting paper exploring fixed prices versus auctions on eBay. According to the authors, a big factor in favor of fixed prices is the consumers' "hassle cost," which I observed first-hand in both India and China. While this suggests a rationale for offering a "Buy It Now" price, it does not explain why a vendor would refuse to hold an auction. Perhaps the manager's hassle cost? Do the managers have an incentive to get that marginal rental?

Permalink | Entrepreneurs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Bookmark

I have never played soccer, and I have rarely watched a match on television. The low scores remind me of baseball, which is also a horrible television sport. Baseball is much more fun in person, and I assume soccer is the same way. All of that said, when nations compete in soccer, it can be pretty exciting.

Euro Cup 2004 began this weekend, and it has much of Europe talking. The first day yielded the surprise upset of host Portugal by Greece. Today, Switzerland managed a tie with Croatia.

But the big news is France's stunning victory over England. France was favored to win, but the stunning part was the fact that France scored both of its goals in added time. This has to be one of the biggest "chokes" I have ever witnessed in any sport. England was up 1-0 for the entire second half. At one point, their amazing 18-year-old halfback Wayne Rooney broke away from the defense and was tackled inside the box, earning England a free kick. But an almost certain 2-0 lead was denied by France's goalkeeper, who stopped David Beckham's lame kick. Then, with almost no time left, an English defender fouled a French player just outside the box. French star Zidane placed the kick right in the corner of the goal, and England's goalie hardly moved. Then, just a minute later, France had a breakway and the English goalie tackled the French player. This resulted in a free kick for Zidane, which he made easily. End of match. Absolutely incredible. England must be in mourning.

Of course, all of this is just warmup here in Germany, where the country awaits a first-round match with Holland. I have learned that Germany and Holland are longtime rivals, and this could be the most intense match of the tournament so far, despite Germany's down year.

Permalink | Sports | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) | Bookmark

We attended the first stage of the Tour de Suisse on Saturday. That stage ended in the charming little town of Beromünster. When we arrived at about noon, the town was still preparing for the riders, and we found a spot right on the finish line. Of course, the race didn't end until after 5:00 pm, and we didn't last that long. We did manage to partake in the festivities, however, aquiring some sponsor giveaways and some great memories. Since Graham Watson hasn't posted any photos from the Tour of Switzerland, I will post of few of my meager shots.

Unless you are watching one of the mountain stages, cycling is a great in-person spectator sport for only a few seconds. The riders blaze by at such high speeds that most of the time at the event is down time. In Beromünster some of the locals decided to fill the time with traditional Swiss songs.

What possesses these people to dress up like this for a cycling event? In this instance, "Satan" is the obvious answer to that. This fellow walked by, allowed me to snap the shot, then proceeded to "hex" some of the riders. Bizarre.

Oh, yes, there was some cycling, too. This was the first pass through Beromünster. I think that the rider in the middle in pink is Jan Ullrich, who eventually won the stage, but I was snapping photos so fast that I don't remember all of the details.

After watching the first two passes through Beromünster, my kids decided that four hours of the Tour de Suisse was enough, so we left early to beat the crowd. Beromünster is so small, however, that all of the exits were block off for the race. We managed to drive a couple of miles from town before encountering a roadblock, where I snapped this photo. Just as we arrived at the roadblock, we saw the television helicopter hovering nearby, so we jumped out of the car just in time to catch the leading group of four riders. This large group was well behind ... we suspected an accident, but never learned the reason for the delay.

Permalink | Cycling | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Bookmark

Quick -- name a German cheese! Other than Limburger (which actually originated in Belgium). Maybe you thought of Tilsit, but that is from a town that now lies in Russia. The only other one I came up with was Muenster, but that is from a town in Alsace, which is now part of France.

Perhaps these modern national borders should not dictate the country of cheese origin, but the fact remains: Germany is not a cheese rich country. France, of course, is notorious for having many cheeses. Switzerland is not far behind. Spain and England also hold their own, but Germany is pathetic in the cheese department.

So much so that when I went to the local grocery earlier this week and asked for a "genuine German cheese," I felt like I had just stumped the band. The cheese assistant -- who knew her cheeses -- at first tried to persuade me to purchase something from France or Switzerland, but when I insisted on German cheese, she tried to rise to the challenge. She just didn't have much to work with. We ended up with a Swiss-like cheese and some Butterkäse ("butter cheese"), which may have been made with milk from German cows, but isn't distinctively German. To overcome this drought, I am headed for Switzerland tomorrow.

Permalink | Cheese | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0) | Bookmark

Where is the world's largest cuckoo clock? Perhaps in Michigan? Canada? Ohio? Here is one from Georgia that claims to be the largest real cuckoo clock ("buildings don't count" ... but only because that would mean this clock isn't really the largest). This is inane beyond expression, but I visited the small city of Triberg today, which claims to have the Weltgroesste Kuckucksuhr ... and I paid 1.5 Euros to see the clockworks, so I am sticking with this one. (We also saw the "First" World's Largest Cuckoo Clock, that is, the one that claims to have been the largest before the other was built.) I should also mention that the owners of the clock we saw today claim to be recognized by Guinness, though no cuckoo clocks were mentioned among the 40,000 records found here. Imagine that: you put all of that work and emotion into becoming the largest cuckoo clock, and Guiness doesn't even think you belong in the 40,000 records it lists on its website. I guess they should have gone for "largest popcorn sculture," which made the list.

Permalink | Travel | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Bookmark

I am watching on CNN as the caisson carrying Ronald Reagan's casket moves toward the United States Capitol. I cannot match Steve Bainbridge for Reagan adulation, but I will add my two bits.

I am just old enough to remember Reagan's flirtation with presidential politics in 1976, when incumbent President Gerald Ford retained the Republican Party's endorsement. Reagan seemed like an odd interloper to me then. Ford seemed like the obvious choice, despite his notorious (and exaggerated) clumsiness, his silly WIN buttons (for "Whip Inflation Now"), and the baggage that accompanied being the hand-picked successor of disgraced President Richard Nixon.

Four years later, beaten down by Jimmy Carter's ineptitude, many of us embraced Reagan more for his attitude than his policies. (Just a side note: I missed the opportunity to vote for Reagan by a matter of days, as my 18th birthday on November 16 was just after the election.) It is easy to forget how bleak the world looked in the United States in 1980. Nixon had made us very cynical about the Presidency -- an attitude that has persisted to the present, not without assistance from Presidents Clinton and Bush. Moreover, President Carter was simply depressing, and his handling of the Iranian hostage situation was deplorable. He seems like an immensely good person, and he has been a wonderful ex-President, perhaps the best ever, but he was a terrible disappointment while in office. Ronald Reagan was the anti-Carter, a man who would not succumb to the malaise.

I am still moved by the memory of Reagan proclaiming, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” Having come of age in the Cold War and having lived in Austria -- a country then surrounded on three sides by the Iron Curtain -- during the early 1980s, I had become accustomed to the idea of Soviet Communism as a permanent fixture on the world stage.

I am still horrified by the memory of watching Reagan being gunned down in front of the Washington Hilton. For some reason, I was watching television at the exact moment of the shooting, and I remember the newscasters breaking in with the reports. I cried that day, but I laughed when I heard about Reagan's comment to the operating team: "Please tell me you're all Republicans."

Ronald Reagan was not perfect, and I am more than willing to concede his shortcomings. But he changed my life for the better. He helped me to believe something that I have always wanted to believe: that one person could change the world. For that I am forever indebted.

Permalink | Politics | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Bookmark

While walking around Bath last week, I snapped this photo (click it for a better view), which indicated the presence of a venture capital firm. The firm has a nice website and a substantial portfolio of information technology companies. I didn't expect to find such a firm in Bath, but I always enjoy stumbling across venture capitalists in my travels. This reminds me vaguely of an earlier trip to Europe, when I met a Hungarian venture capitalist on the overnight train from Budapest to Krakow. If you do not frequent this world, you should know that venture capital is not passé. It did not burst with the internet bubble. Indeed, after visiting India and China earlier this year, I am convinced that venture capital is, more than ever, on the rise.

Permalink | Venture Capital | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Bookmark

After several days of rather hectic travel through the UK, I have finally landed in Germany. It has been an eventful trip with two of my children. We began our European tour in Glasgow, which was cool and rainy. Although we didn't see much of the city, we attended a nice banquet in the City Chambers, a beautiful old structure adjacent to a statue-filled square. I gave my children a quick history lesson about James Watt, the most recognizable figure to me, before entering the Chambers. The highlight of the evening was the presentation of the haggis, which both of my children bravely tasted even after learning what it was.

On our way south from Glasgow, we drove a bit out of our way to find this segment of Hadrian's Wall, which was not as magnificent as the Great Wall of China, but impressive in its own way. We encountered several people who were hiking the length of Hadrian's Wall, which spans the breadth of north England. They were doing this in five days, but already looked weary and suggested that seven days may have been a more realistic goal.

We had grand plans for our trip south, which originally included meandering through the Lake District, touring Warwick Castle, and lolling in the Cotswolds. But I allotted only one day to all of this, and as a result, we accomplished none of it. We did manage to stop briefly in Stratford upon Avon, where we saw Shakespeare's birthplace and burial chapel. I am not sure what I expected from SuA, but I didn't find much worth seeing. We ate some mediocre food at the Harvard House, where I encountered a University of Wisconsin alum (undergraduate class of '73). They are everywhere!

Shortly after leaving SuA, our rental car punctured a tire. So there we were, on a country road somewhere in the Cotswolds -- actually a bit lost at the time -- with a flat. My 8-year-old son was astonished to learn that the car had a spare tire under our luggage in the trunk, and my 10-year-old daughter was amazed that her dad knew how to lift up the car with a jack and change the tire. "Did you learn how to do that in high school?" Well, it wasn't quite as fast as they do it at the Indy 500, but I was frustrated enough to get it done in a few minutes, and we headed off to Bath.

I would have stayed the night in the Cotswolds, but I had made a reservation in Bath, which looks a lot closer to Glasgow on a map than it does on an English motorway. We finally arrived in Bath at around 10:30 pm, only to find that I had misplaced the name and address of the inn. Oi! What was it again? White Stag? No, that's not it. White Hart! That's it! The White Hart Inn. Armed with a name, I stopped at a petrol station, which was manned by someone who, incredibly, did not speak English. But as luck would have it, a taxi driver stopped at the same time. It turns out that there are several "White Hart Inns" in Bath, but he thought that he knew which one we were seeking. Unfortunately, either he cannot give directions or I cannot follow them because 15 minutes later we were again completely lost. So we stopped again, this time at another inn. They had never heard of the White Hart Inn, but they were kind enough to call both of those listed in the Yellow Pages, neither of which was the right one. Now what? The innkeeper gave us a map of Bath, and I noticed an area called Widcombe not far away. The taxi driver had mentioned Widcombe, so we decided to try our luck. We drove about two minutes down the road, and there it was!

The White Hart Inn looks quaint on the internet. In person, it is just dumpy. Clean, but spartan. And the way our night was going, you won't be surprised to hear that the innkeeper did not have our reservation. All of that effort to find a place that wasn't even expecting us. Well, he made hasty arrangements -- which included displacing one of his other guests -- and found us a room. Despite the modest beds, we slept well.

Bath is a lovely town, but my wife would have enjoyed it more, as she is the Jane Austen fan in the family. In this photo I am standing near the famous Bath Cathedral. I am a sucker for old European cathedrals, and this one is very enticing. Most of Bath's charm comes from the famous Circus and Royal Crescent as well as the old, winding streets filled with restaurants and shops, some traditional and some modern. But the highlight of Bath for us was the tour of the Roman baths for which the town takes its name. The self-guided tour lasted about two hours, and even my children were transfixed by stories of ancient Romans performing various rituals at the temple and washing in the hot springs.

We spent more time than we had planned in Bath, but we still had time to see Stonehenge on the way to London. After hearing and reading that it was not as impressive as people anticipated, my expectations were low, but I left Stonehenge with a sense of awe. Again, the self-guided tour was good enough that even my children were enthralled by the stories of the people who erected the giant structure 5,000 years ago. While I am unsympathetic to bizarre stories like "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," I found Stonehenge inspiring in much the same way that I find cathedrals inspiring. Something about the act of faith implicit in creating a structure so large inspires me.

We had planned to see a bit of London, but in the end, we decided to leave London for another day. We took an early morning Chunnel train to Brussels -- by the way, the Chunnel was nothing special from the passenger's viewpoint, just 20 minutes of darkness in the middle of a train ride -- then two more trains to Giessen. And here I sit, already halfway through my first week of classes. The Germans, at least those in Giessen, seem less excited about venture capital than the Australians or the Chinese, but they will get my best shot anyway. Frankly, it's hard not to be excited about such a fun topic. I will write more on Germany in later posts, but I still have some exams to grade and a teacher's manual to write ...

Permalink | Travel | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) | Bookmark

Later today I will be boarding a plane for Europe with two of my children. As you will have perceived if you hang around here much, I don't like to travel alone. When it is impossible to travel as a family, we travel in small groups. The three of us will begin our journey in Scotland and end it in Germany, with a bit of England, Belgium, and Switzerland in between. Blogging may be light, but I will strive to check in regularly.

Permalink | Travel | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Bookmark

In discussing the Silk Market, I talked about the problem of adverse selection and the futile attempts of vendors in that market to overcome the problem. The same problem plagues vendors in the Pearl Market, though they have more effective means of countering the problem. Pearl vendors are constantly scraping at their pearls with scissors or rubbing the pearls together or torching their pearls with a cigarette lighter -- all in an effort to assure the buyer that the pearls are real. American jewelers would never dream of performing such stunts, as they are more concerned about the effect on the pearls, but the freshwater pearls being sold in the Pearl Market are much cheaper than those sold by high-end jewelers in the U.S. Perhaps the most elaborate display of quality assurance that we saw during our trip was the one pictured here, where a shop employee opened an oyster (chosen by my daughter) to reveal the many pearls inside. No doubt about authenticity there, even if the quality was rather poor.

Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Bookmark

'Tis the season for new law deans, and I just noticed (courtesy of jd2b) that Boston University named Maureen O’Rourke as its new dean. We have met at a couple of conferences and she co-authors a casebook with a former colleague, who had nothing but good things to say about her. She will be great.

Last week, I received a call from a friend inquiring -- not completely tongue-in-cheek, I think -- whether I would be interested in being considered as a dean candidate for his school. I thought about it for ... hmm ... much less than a second before declining. Too much scholarship that still needs to come out before I submit to something like that.

Permalink | Law Schools/Lawyering | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Bookmark

In the hectic rush of spring, I have been neglecting some of my law student blog reading, but there is lots of year-end advice for prospective law students to be had. Heidi's excellent series is a good place to start. Start here, then here, then here. Then check out Tony's analysis of the market in outlines and notes here. Buffalo Wings has a few exam tips in his inimitable style. And if you are already in law school and thinking about next year, try Sua Sponte for ideas on course selection.

Permalink | Law Schools/Lawyering | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Bookmark

Blogging is so easy now that there is no excuse not to do it, if you are so inclined. Last week, in literally a few minutes, I set up an experimental site called "Law & Entrepreneurship News." This site combines two aspirations:

(1) Systematic collection of and commentary on developments in law and entrepreneurship. As an academic who is expected to stay abreast of developments relating to law and entrepreneurship, I have been frustrated by the absence of any single, organized method of accessing such information. I recognized early on that Venturpreneur could not serve as a forum for discussing law and entrepreneurship in a systematic way. This site is idiosyncratic. I write about what interests me. Sometimes those things interest other people, and other times not so much. The fact is that we do not organize law around the topic of "entrepreneurship." As you can see from the new site, many areas of law affect entrepreneurial firms, and one of the challenges of this new site will be to sift through new developments in search of those that -- if not uniquely important to entrepreneurial firms -- are at least important to entrepreneurial firms in unusual ways.

2. Use of the blogging format in legal pedagogy. As frequent visitors to this site are aware, I am an inveterate tinkerer as an educator. Since I entered academe ten years ago, I have been interested in the potential of technology to enhance the process of learning law. Blogging holds some promise here, I think, and the new site is an attempt to experiment with that. As you can see from the description on the new blog, the idea is to appoint student editors for the various topics that will be covered by the blog. This isn't the same sort of exercise as law review, but the students will be researching and writing development squibs, which could prove quite educational.

This idea is still being vetted internally at my law school, so the structure may evolve from ideas generated in that process. At the same time, I would be interested to hear any suggestions or words of advice, wisdom, caution, etc. from Venturpreneur readers. Please let me know what you think ...

P.S. Once I figure out Typepad and select student editors, I hope to change the "About Me" page to "About Us"; the "Email Me" link to "Email Us"; and the picture from me alone to a picture of the whole group. Suggestions from Typepad mavens are also welcome on these issues.

Permalink | Blogs and Blawgs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Bookmark

If you are interested in the law of venture capital, don't look too hard in the courts. Next week I will be teaching a course on American venture capital contracts in Germany. In preparation for the course, I looked through every judicial decision since August in which the words "venture capital" appear. (This may not be as impressive as it sounds, since only one or two such opinions appear in Westlaw every week.) Most of these opinions are related only tangentially to venture capital. When the venture capitalists play the lead role, it is usually in response to a claim that they are involved in securities fraud. For the most part, the fact that the defendants are venture capitalists -- as opposed to investment bankers, accountants, lawyers, or farmers -- is uninteresting and irrelevant. The bottom line is that the law of venture capital is not to be found in the courts, but in the contracts that venture capitalists use. One of my project this summer and next year is to develop a more coherent method of speaking of law in that form.

Permalink | Venture Capital | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Bookmark

I just learned that the Deutsches Filmmuseum and the Deutsche Architektur Museum in Frankfurt are running a Stanley Kubrick Exhibition while I am in Germany (just a short distance from Frankfurt). I am not a big cinema buff, but I like some of Kubrick's older films, including Dr. Strangelove and (parts of) 2001: A Space Odyssey. Most interesting to me, however, would be to see Kubrick's plans for a Napolean film biography.

Permalink | Popular Culture | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Bookmark