I came across some research last week which reminded me of the Roman saying “mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur” (“The world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived.”).
A press release from independent financial analyst Moneyfacts revealed some research into the behaviour of financial firms conducted by Dr John Ashton of the ESRC Centre for Competition Policy at the University of East Anglia and Dr Robert Hudson of Leeds University Business School. They discovered a phenomenon which they named “the Point 99 Syndrome”, in recognition of the fact that companies often use numbers ending in .99, rather than rounding these up to the nearest whole number….
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