Ask Your Teachers for a Rebate
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Ian Ayres, a law professor at Yale, has found a novel way to beat the high cost of text books"
"He handed out more than $150 to my "small group" of Contracts students. It was a strange moment -- pulling out your wallet and passing out cash. But I did it because I assigned my contracts casebook and I'm trying to reduce the financial conflict of interest that professors have in assigning their own books. I wrote about doing this in a 2005 New York Times Op-Ed:
Ayres writes: "You see, I earn a $10.30 royalty on every copy of my textbook that a student buys. Instead of just trying to get the best book for my class (and to do so I should weigh both quality and price), I might also consider assigning my own book and increasing my profit."
Here is a fun review of Ayres Textbook
Does this work?
The commentators are mixed at Freakonomics, but I don't think that the rebate strategy makes a lot of sense. Rebates are for rewarding frequent or loyal customers, and not merely discounts.
What do you think, has Ayres credibly signalled that he is not biased when it comes to choosing text books?
