SSP-100 (033) Money and Value: What’s it Worth?

Susan Belden, Associate Professor of Management & Business

If you were to draw a $50 bill, could you expect to pay for your $40 lunch in Manhattan and get $10 in change? Probably not, but artist J.S.G. Boggs has done it many times. What are these “Boggs” bills he draws really worth? Are they art or money? Take other pieces of paper: a stock certificate or a lottery ticket. What are they worth? Or take happiness, that highly valued intangible thing that the Declaration of Independence says we have an unalienable right to pursue. What is it worth? How is it related to money? This seminar explores these questions by drawing on writings by economists and psychologists, with a particular emphasis on how psychology is changing the way economists view the world and understand the concepts of money and value.