Many biases and inconsistencies uncovered by behavioral economics are really about people struggling to make sense of a dollar. Without a clear sense of how to value a $50 savings, people in our study with Hall used the base price as background against which to value the $50. The poor, in contrast, because they do face $50 trade-offs, have an expert’s internal metric (possibly a rough one) for what $50 is worth. Consequently, they are less prone to inconsistency.
