When students returned to Grounds in August and September, they knew that an unusual semester awaited them. With UVA moving classes completely online and establishing strict social distancing guidelines, everyone was contemplating how they (and their households) would approach the unprecedented circumstances.
Using this Wikihow as a guide, my roommates and I established a roommate agreement that everyone in the house would unanimously agree to adhere to. As Buchanan and Tullock explain in Chapter 6 of the Calculus of Consent, requiring unanimity would limit our external costs, which is exactly what we aimed to do. By hopefully increasing the degree of obligation we felt towards respecting the constitution, unanimity would also limit free-riding. Thus, in coming up with the components of our roommate agreement together, we ensured the creation of a constitution we would all agree to respect. Although this led to higher decision-making costs (i.e. the discussion, collaboration, and development of the agreement), we minimized the negative externalities that we would impose on one another if we had no set rules. An example of a negative externality we hoped to avoid would be bringing undue risk upon each other by not following social distancing guidelines and proceeding to share common areas in the house. The constitution stipulated that we maintain social distancing outside the house and that we keep our social circles small; limited to 4 people outside of the household and not including “risky” individuals. I believe the establishment of the roommate COVID constitution was well worth the decision-making costs involved because by establishing our expectations of one another, we greatly decreased the negative externalities we may have otherwise imposed on each other this semester.
1 comment:
It is great that you and your roommates have decided to commit to limiting the negative externalities that you all could impose on one another because by doing so, you have also decreased the potential negative externalities that each of you could impose on those you all interact with outside of your home. If all four of you commit to being safe for each other, you are also keeping your other friends, the grocer and waitress on the corner, and the elderly folks in the community safe. The only problem is that if any of the people you interact with outside your home do not follow similar precautions, then they are theoretically free-ridding off of your safety; they will not contract the virus from a safe person like you or one of your roommates because you take on the cost of taking extra precautions, but they don't have to pay the price of also practicing extra safety precautions themselves in order to benefit from you an your roommates' safety. It is also important to point out that you have also used your roommate constitution as an enforcement mechanism to force a pareto efficient outcome, thereby solving the prisoner's dilemma. Theoretically, you and your roommates could have chosen a praeto inefficient option of not practicing any extra precautions, but your constitution forced you all to do so by imposing social pressure. Though governing by social pressure is not the most forceful enforcement mechanism, hopefully this has worked out well for you all. And thank you for keeping all of us safe.
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