Chapter 104 Question ○94

Why do stores put up posters in the windows saying that guide dogs are allowed? (Miles Hernandez) Many stores will put up posters in the windows to inform consumers of the store's policies.For example, some stores do not allow customers to enter barefoot or shirtless, and there are more and more stores that prohibit smoking and pets.However, while pets are not allowed, stores will always post an additional sign saying that guide dogs are allowed.But neither guide dogs nor their owners can see these signs, so why bother? Sighted patrons do not have guide dogs and therefore do not need to know if guide dogs are allowed.Even so, it would still be in the store owner's interest to make these customers aware of the guide dog exception.Some people may see a dog in the store, not recognize it as a guide dog, and incorrectly conclude that the store does not have a strict no-pets policy at all.Others may find it unreasonable to ban all pets as it discriminates against blind customers.

Admittedly, these benefits are very subtle.But the cost of the posters themselves is not expensive, they are just posters.Even if they create only modest benefits, it makes sense to post them. Taking action with limited information is more cost-effective than bearing the cost of having sufficient information. The principle of difficulty of counterfeiting, that is, if a signal organ among potential opponents is authentic and reliable, it must be difficult to counterfeit (or too expensive to counterfeit). There are two kinds of buyers in the market, those who don't know what they're doing, and those who don't know what they don't know what they're doing.The first type of buyer can sometimes limit his losses by taking into account his own lack of knowledge of what the visible relationship between price and quality implies.

As long as they are aware of the tendency of established bias, policymakers can mostly benefit. The cost-benefit principle can sometimes help us make sense of seemingly meaningless information.