Why is milk stored in rectangular cartons, and
soft drinks in round cans? (Ruth Fremson/The New York
Times)
By Alice Rawsthorn
LONDON: Have you ever wondered why some cars have fuel fillers on
the left, and others on the right? Why your VCR is stuffed with
functions that you'll never use? Why women button their clothes
from the left, and men from the right? Or why CD cases are smaller
than DVD cases when the discs are the same size?
We encounter puzzles like these every day. They're not
life-threatening or planet-imperiling, but they don't make sense,
not at first, anyway. The American economist, Robert H. Frank, has
devoted a book, "The Economic Naturalist," to unraveling them. His
explanations for what he calls "everyday enigmas" are rooted in
economic theory, but many of them also illuminate anomalies in the
design of the things that fill our lives.
The issues explored in the book were suggested by the students on
the introductory economics course Frank teaches at Cornell
University. He asked them to find economic explanations for things
that flummoxed them in daily life. Frank, who has flirted with
design before, notably in his self-explanatorily entitled book,
"Luxury Fever: Why money fails to satisfy in an era of success,"
then devised his own answers to the most interesting questions. His
objective was to show that, beneath the jargon and mathematical
formalism, economics is grounded in common sense.
Some of the questions and answers in "The Economic Naturalist" are
purely economic. Why are brown eggs more expensive than white ones?
Because the hens that lay them are bigger and tend to eat more. Why
is it so hard to find taxis in the rain? Because many drivers stop
work after hitting their daily fare targets, which they do faster
in wet weather when more people use cabs. The grist of Frank's
argument is that most business decisions are determined by the
cost-benefit principle, whereby you only do something if the
benefit gained is greater than the cost incurred. And the
application of this principle exerts considerable influence on
design.
A simple example is the over-complicated VCR. Why do manufacturers
load them up with so many functions - most of which we seldom, if
ever, use - that recording a television program is infuriatingly
difficult? The answer is because it costs so little to add each
function to a VCR that is cheaper to install them on every machine
- just in case anyone wants them - than to "edit" models for
different customers. Frank could have made an identical case
against the over-complicated cellphone.
The same argument explains why Braille keypads are fitted on
drive-by cash machines, even though the people who use them are
unlikely to be able to see clearly enough to drive. Again the
cost-benefit principle means that manufacturers can't justify the
additional cost of producing one set of machines with Braille
keypads, and another set without them.
Other anomalies are historic. Take the positioning of buttons on
clothes. Why are they on the right for men, and the left for women,
especially since, for the 90 percent of the population who are
right-handed, it's much easier to do up buttons from the right?
It's because when buttons were introduced in the 17th century, they
were affordable only by the wealthy. As rich men then dressed
themselves, they did so from the right; whereas wealthy women were
dressed by servants, who preferred to button them up from the left.
The custom continues today, even though fewer women are dressed by
servants, because there has been no incentive for the fashion
industry to change it.
Or think of the seemingly illogical difference in size between the
packaging of (identically sized) CDs and DVDs. This dates back to
the 1980s, when retailers were replacing 12-inch, or
302-millimeter, vinyl LPs with CDs, and realized that there would
be enough space in each old LP rack for two rows of CDs, if the
cases were just under 5 inches high. Yet when DVDs came out in the
1990s, they were displayed alongside videocassettes, whose cases
were more than 7 inches high, so DVD packaging was made to the same
height.
The explanations for other everyday enigmas are vested in the
present. Why, for instance, is milk stored in rectangular cartons,
and soft drinks in round cans? It's because it's easier to hold a
round can when downing a cola, whereas comfort isn't as important
to us when we're pouring milk from a carton, as we don't hold them
for as long. That's why manufacturers use rectangular milk cartons,
which can be packed more efficiently as they occupy less space in
pallets, trucks and shop shelves. There's also a financial
incentive. Milk is stored in refrigerated cabinets, so the space it
occupies is more expensive to operate than the open shelves
occupied by soft drinks.
Other apparent inconsistencies are equally pragmatic. Think of
money. Why do portraits appear in profile on coins and full face on
notes? Because the print quality on notes is higher than on coins,
and the intricacy of a full portrait may deter counterfeiters, who
are more likely to fake high value notes, than pennies or
dimes.
And why do some cars have fuel fillers on the left and others on
the right? Because gas station pumps work from both sides, and if
every car had a filler on the same side, motorists would have to
queue for twice as long.
"The Economic Naturalist" shows how things can make sense
economically, yet also seem inconsistent and confusing. It will be
fascinating to see how Frank's examples evolve in future as the
cost-benefit balance changes.
Will the sudden outbreak of eco-conscientiousness kill off the
space-hogging soft drink can, once people realize how many more
gas-guzzling trucks are needed to ship round containers than
rectangular ones? And will so many cellphone users be seduced by
the easy-to-use software of Apple's iPhone that rival manufacturers
will have to simplify their phones too? We'll see.
"The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday
Enigmas," by Robert H. Frank, is published by Basic Books.
source
