Unthinkable? Courtesy discounts

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/13/unthinkable-courtesy-discounts

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The news from a restaurant in the south of France that customers asking for un café with a hello and a smile would be charged less than those making a surly monosyllabic request opens up new horizons in pricing policy. People with no experience in service industries perhaps don't realise quite how much rude customers can ruin your day (although the reverse is also true). But in this age of nudge economics, rewarding consideration could be developed as a way of transforming all manner of antisocial behaviour. Take, for example, the teeth-jarring noise of distorted sound escaping from headphones. Perhaps it would be possible to reward considerate users from the fines levied on headphone wearers who like their music loud. Or there's chewing gum, which costs councils thousands of pounds to scrape off their pavements. There could be a returns policy, where the price of new pack of gum would be discounted according the number of used sticks brought back. And surely police or traffic camera operators could award bonus payment notices to set against penalty charge notices: courteous drivers would earn dispensations to be banked against future outbreaks of road rage. The more widely good manners were incentivised, the greater number of people would be exposed to them and, according to the principles of economists such as Alfred Marshall, father of consumer choice theory, the more likely politeness would be preferred over boorishness.

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