Behavioral Economics Professor Dan Ariely of Duke University provides an illuminating and humorous example of irrational valuation in his advice column today for Wall Street Journal. It seems that this Christmas holiday weekend may be ruined for a couple who took advantage of a buy-one-get-one-free (BOGO) sale on a fine wine. Actually they paid $17 for one bottle and a nickel ($0.05) for the other. They asked Professor Ariely to help them escape a terrible dilemma: For the holiday party would it be OK to bring the cheap wine? Ha ha!
I hope that for the coming year all of you readers of StatsMadeEasy do not get hung up spurious issues like this relating to correlation and causation or any other statistical kerfuffles. Happy Holidays and New Year!
PS. I leave you with this toast to 2013–a picture taken last week during my tour of a winery in the Colchagua Valley south of Santiago, Chile. Cheers!