The Economic Way of Thinking 13th Edition by David Prychitko, Peter Boettke, Paul Heyne

Exercise 19

The discussion of lunch and dinner prices at the end of the chapter may be leaving out something important. Dinner patrons almost always take more time to eat than do lunch patrons. Doesn't this raise the cost of providing dinner? Under what circumstances would it not raise the cost? If lingering over a meal is costly to restaurants, they will presumably try to prevent or limit it. How might they do this without irritating customers? Will restaurants ever want to encourage lingering? How might they do this?