Is there, in fact, a Linux training market out there?

[Mike Oliver]

Quoting Christopher Browne <cbbrowne-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>:

> I suspect that you're right in thinking that this sort of training has
> been claimed by the big vendors.  There's a fair chance, as well, that
> training courses are a Giffen good, or similar.
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giffen_good>

I'm going to indulge myself in an off-topic pedantic quibble:  What you're
describing is not a Giffen good.  Your point is that higher price may
result in more consumption because buyers assume it's better.  I don't
know if that has a name ("Veblen good" is close but not quite the same;
that's where people buy expensive stuff to show it off).

A Giffen good is an inferior good (that is, one for which consumers
would prefer a substitute), such that when you raise its price, it
is more consumed, because of the effect of the higher price on the
effective income of the consumers.  I think the classic example is
raising the price of potatoes and thereby making consumers unable to
buy bread (because they still have to pay for a certain amount of
potatoes; they can't afford to live on bread alone) -- so they wind
up having to buy even more potatoes.

Giffen goods exist in certain economic models.  Offhand the effect doesn't
sound very probable, and to my knowledge there is no uncontroversial example
in the wild.

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