BizBasics: "Weber-Fechner Law of Pricing"

If you save a dollar buying cereal for $2.99 or a dollar buying a shirt for $79.99, you’re saving the same amount — $1. However, as Professor Ron Wilcox explains, our perception of a dollar changes within the context of a specific purchase. If you understand the Weber-Fechner Law of Pricing, more of your money might stay in your wallet.

The BizBasics video series, created by the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, is designed to explain basic business concepts and common business buzz words.

About the Expert

Ronald T. Wilcox

NewMarket Corporation Professor of Business Administration

Wilcox has four specific areas of expertise: marketing financial services, branding, marketing for nonprofits and public policy, and marketing.

His research, focused on the marketing of financial services and its interface with public policy, has appeared in leading marketing and finance journals such as the Journal of Marketing Research, Management Science, Marketing Science and the Journal of Business. He is a frequent contributor to Forbes and is the author of the popular book Whatever Happened to Thrift? Why Americans Don’t Save and What to Do About It. The book was named one of the Top Five Business Books of the Year by Kiplinger. He also wrote “Private Enterprise’s Role in Increasing Savings,” a chapter of Franklin’s Thrift: The History of a Lost American Virtue.

Wilcox, a former economist for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, has served as a consultant for Pratt & Whitney, Sikorsky, Timken, Johnson & Johnson and numerous other companies.

A.B., Xavier University; M.S., Ph.D., Washington University

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