Someone Else Will Write it, Right? 😅

 I was recently asked by a 2nd-year student I know moderately well to submit a nomination for him for the Meriwether Lewis Institute for Leadership and Citizenship. The nomination form includes writing a 300-word or less essay explaining why we think the candidate would be good for the program.

Thus, I asked him to send his resume or some of his involvements, and he did. However, after hearing that he's asked multiple people to write him a nomination, I decided that I was not going to submit a form because the marginal private benefit of my submission to his odds of becoming a fellow would not exceed the marginal private cost to me of spending the time to write the nomination. I value my time at $27 an hour for the two jobs I work, plus the expected future value of my degree in the labor market, which is a function of the time I spend developing my human capital and progressing towards my degree by completing assignments and studying. This situation can be looked at as analogous to the rational voter hypothesis because my nomination for him, in some ways, counts as a vote for him to be a part of the program; (PB) + (D - C) in my case is not greater than zero because (D-C) is $-13.5 because my "vote" for this person does not benefit me at all, so D = 0 and C equals 13.5 because the form will take an estimated 30 minutes to complete. B is zero because I am indifferent about this guy being in the program or not; thus, PB = 0, even though my "vote" would undoubtedly have some benefit. Therefore, we end up with (0) + (0 - 13.5) = -13.5.

All these factors led me to neglect to submit a nomination form for the good homie, even though the 45 minutes I spent writing this blog post could have been devoted to his nomination form 😅. I'm just hoping I can free-ride off the generosity of others he asked to submit a form if they choose to do so and take partial credit for his success in becoming an MLI fellow 🤭.