经济的变化往往体现在价格变化上。
但是……
一瓶可口可乐在1886年的售价是5美分。1900年，1915年，甚至1930年，它的售价依然是五美分。实际上在第一瓶可口可乐发售的第70个年头，5美分仍然能买到一瓶可口可乐。
三次大战，经济大萧条，数以百计的竞争对手——都不能撼动可乐的售价半分。这是为什么呢？
1899年有两位律师拜访了可口可乐公司的总裁。那时可口可乐装在汽水冷饮机里出售。但是这两位律师有个新点子：把这饮料装瓶出售。他们想从可口可乐公司买到瓶装授权。
当时的可口可乐公司总裁没有就瓶装问题有太多考虑。于是交易当即定下：两位律师得到瓶装可乐的销售授权，可口可乐公司提供液体可乐。根据协议两位律师能用固定价格买到液体可乐。协议永久有效。
西佛吉尼亚州大学的经济学者Andrew Young认为可口可乐的总裁仅为摆脱两位律师的纠缠而签下这个合同。
Young评论道：“无论何时见到两位律师侯在办公室，你最想做的一定是让他们离开。”“然后他说，‘我在这张纸上签名，只要你们离开我的办公室。’”
瓶装可乐，当然也跟着离开啦。这下可口可乐公司可把自己逼得进退两难。假使经销商或便利店把可乐涨价，可口可乐公司也无利可图。
你是可口可乐公司的话你会设法把单价固定在五美分吗？如此一来你就可以从经销商手上得到更多的可乐订单。你会怎么抉择？
“你要做的是把可口可乐单价‘5美分’的广告覆盖全美，让它成为国人的对品牌的固定形象。”Young分析道。
公司不可能直白地在可乐瓶身上贴上“五美分”标签。不过，在便利店附近的建筑上贴上显眼广告宣告：“喝可口可乐吧，仅售5美分。”倒是可行之道。
“被无处不在的广告洗脑后可乐涨价可没那么容易了。”同时任职于以色列巴伊兰大学和埃默里大学的经济学教授Daniel Levy说。
可口可乐公司和经销商就以就此合同重回谈判桌。然而可乐的单价仍旧固定在五美分。这回的涨价障碍可是自动售卖机。
可口可乐的自动售卖机限定投币金额是五美分。
Levy说可口可乐公司有考虑过把自动售卖机价格改为十美分。但是价格翻倍又太过火。他们想出了折衷的办法。
让财政部发行7.5美分的硬币。这时，可口可乐的总裁向艾森豪威尔总统求助。（这两人可是打猎活动中的好拍档。）不过事与愿违。
最后，五美分可乐被扼杀在通货膨胀中。原材料价格上涨。19世纪40年代后期一些便利店的可口可乐售价升至六美分每瓶。在1959年后五美分一瓶的可口可乐开始销声匿迹。
五美分一瓶的传说保持了70年以上。回顾历史，Andrew Young认为对可口公司来说利大于弊。这是可口可乐无处不在的原因之一。可口公司不能从涨价获益。因此它把握了唯一的自主权。就是提高可乐的销售额。
Prices change; that's fundamental to how economies work.
And yet: In 1886, a bottle of Coke cost a nickel. It was also a nickel in 1900, 1915 and 1930. In fact, 70 years after the first Coke was sold, you could still buy a bottle for a nickel.
Three wars, the Great Depression, hundreds of competitors — none of it made any difference for the price of Coke. Why not?
In 1899, two lawyers paid a visit to the president of Coca-Cola. At the time, Coke was sold at soda fountains. But the lawyers were interested in this new idea: selling drinks in bottles. The lawyers wanted to buy the bottling rights for Coca-Cola.
The president of Coca-Cola didn't think much of the whole bottle thing. So he made a deal with the lawyers: He'd let them sell Coke in bottles, and he'd sell them the syrup to do it. According to the terms of the deal, the lawyers would be able to buy the syrup at a fixed price. Forever.
Andrew Young, an economist at West Virginia University, says the president of Coke may have signed the contract just to get the guys out of his office.
"Anytime you've got two lawyers in your office, you probably want them to leave," Young says. "And he's saying, 'I'll sign this piece of paper if you'll just please leave my office.' "
Bottled drinks, of course, took off. And Coca-Cola was in a bind. If the bottlers or a corner store decided to raise the price of a bottle of Coke, Coca-Cola wouldn't get any extra money.
So, if you're Coca-Cola, you want to somehow keep the price down at 5 cents so you can sell as much syrup as possible to the bottlers. What do you do?
"One thing you do is blanket the entire nation with Coca-Cola advertising that basically has '5 cents' prominently featured," Young says.
The company couldn't actually put price tags on the bottles of Coke saying "5 cents." But it could paint a giant ad on the side of a building right next to the store that says, "Drink Coca-Cola, 5 Cents."
"Since everybody was brainwashed — people saw these ads all over — it was hard for anyone to increase the price," says Daniel Levy, a professor of Economics at Bar-Ilan University in Israel and at Emory University in Atlanta.
That contract with the bottlers eventually got renegotiated. But the price of Coke stayed at a nickel. That was partly due to another obstacle: the vending machine.
The Coca-Cola vending machines were built to take a single coin: a nickel.
Levy says the folks at Coca-Cola thought about converting the vending machines to take a dime. But doubling the price was too much. They wanted something in between.
So they asked the U.S. Treasury to issue a 7.5-cent coin. At one point, the head of Coca-Cola asked President Eisenhower for help. (They were hunting buddies.) No luck.
In the end, inflation killed the nickel Coke. The price of the ingredients rose. In the late 1940s, some stores sold Cokes for 6 cents. The last nickel Coke seems to have been in 1959.
The nickel price had lasted over 70 years. And in retrospect, Andrew Young says, it wasn't a bad thing for the company. It's one reason Coke is everywhere today. The company couldn't raise the price. So it did the only thing it could: It sold as many Cokes as possible.
