We are all spending much more time in our houses/apartments/dorms and with our roommates/families than is usual, thanks to covid (I am a prisoner of my own apartment, if you will). This article proves I am not alone. For me, this has meant headbutting with roommates a lot over things like vacuuming, who is walking the dog, and the kitchen - with the kitchen by far being the biggest point of contention. My apartment kitchen often reminds me of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. The Prisoner’s Dilemma describes a paradox in which two individuals acting out of self interest (following their dominant strategies) produce results that are not Pareto Efficient. In my situation, there are two strategies - contributing to cleaning and not contributing. Cleaning includes things like rinsing pots and pans, loading and unloading the dishwasher, and generally keeping the kitchen crumb and spill free. Clearly, one’s payoff is higher when the kitchen is clean and they do not have to take time out of their day to do the cleaning. My roommates and I all have a dominant strategy of not contributing. This is pareto inefficient (Q*<Qae). If no one contributes, we have to exist in a dirty kitchen that could lead to a situation where undesirable creatures are attracted. Clearly, if we all contributed (the pareto efficient equilibrium), payoffs would be the highest.
I have a relatively low tolerance for messes so often, I will take time out of my day to make sure the kitchen is clean. What is the solution? Mueller used the prisoner’s dilemma as a rationale for government because by making sure we all play by the rules, we can get to the PE outcome. It seems unreasonable to instate rules or chore charts (whoever made one of those would definitely be the least favorite roommate). Mueller also discusses the idea that in this matrix, the cooperative solution could emerge as an outcome in a supergame - where prisoner’s dilemma games are repeated over and over. So, for now, I guess I will have faith and wait and see what happens….
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I've also been thinking about dirty kitchens/dishes in terms of Public Choice recently (midterms have made us be too busy to clean so our kitchen has gotten very messy). I thought this could be a good case for a Coasian solution, as it is a localized issue. In this situation, Coase would advise us to establish property rights over the dishes, for example everyone is responsible for their own dishes. If one of my roommates did not want to do their dishes, they could bargain with us and pay us to do their part. However, there are some issues with this problem that make a Coasian solution difficult. For one, dishes suffer from an assignment problem, as it's difficult to establish blame for who created the mess. People have an incentive to understate how much of the mess they made, so they have less cleaning to do. Also, this situation is not costless, which is a key requirement in a Coasian solution. Gruber discusses how even in localized externalities, like dirty dishes, there still can be cost. Like Charlotte said, being the roommate who creates strict rules is not a well liked roommate. The cost of tension and conflict that this would cause is too high in my opinion to take any action, so I will just continue to hope that after midterms people start cleaning a bit more.
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