What's this kind of deliberately suboptimal transaction called again?
March 14, 2017 10:31 PM   Subscribe

I read an article in the past year about transactions in which both parties have an incentive to say publicly they want a thing to be really rigorous but actually don't, and this is kind of understood by the parties, resulting in suboptimal outcomes that were really desired all along. The transactions had a name - what was it?

The example was somebody publishing a book saying loudly 'Dear Editor, be brutal', and the editor saying loudly 'Of course, I'm a professional!', but there being an unstated assumption that the editor wouldn't go that hard and the author wouldn't say anything about that and would just pay them, because who wants work and rework?
posted by obiwanwasabi to Society & Culture (3 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: Kakonomics?
posted by misteraitch at 11:08 PM on March 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


Compromise.

The perfect is the enemy of the good.
posted by JimN2TAW at 10:21 AM on March 15, 2017


Response by poster: /facepalm

I even commented in that post. Was convinced I'd seen it at Digg so didn't think to check here.

Thanks!
posted by obiwanwasabi at 3:33 PM on March 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


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