The Fresh Water Club

Apparently, some people prefer warm tap water to cold, filtered water from a Brita. I was shocked to learn this when a vote went out on whether to use house funds to buy a Brita filtered water dispenser for everyone in the house to use. It seems that $2.35 each was too steep a price to pay, and a heated debate ensued. With friendships hanging on by a thread, the vote was shot down with a slim majority, and it was decided that the house funds would not go to buying a Brita. 

One housemate, James, determined to get his fresh water, gathered up the people who voted for the Brita, and we decided to share a Brita among just these people. James saw the value in making this a public good instead of buying one privately. In doing this we established a club for Brita water as Buchanan discusses in his theory of clubs. We were able to offer a nonrival good, privately for those in the club. One housemate in the Brita club, who is not an ECON major, brought up a very important objection. He said in a text "Who is to guard the Brita from the non Brita people when they realize that cold filtered water might be better than musty tap water?" He astutely pointed out that it would be difficult to make our Brita excludable. Since the Brita would be in a public fridge, we would have a difficult time preventing free-riders who voted against the Brita from taking our precious water. Relying on human decency threats of retribution, and the pride of those individuals who were so against the Brita, we established this club, and are now able to enjoy fresh filtered water instead of "musty tap water". 

P-ickleball

This past week, the RUF Pickleball Groupme (linked here, for any interested picklers) debated randomizing teams for our next monthly tournament. To settle this debate, the GroupMe admin sent a poll with options “1: randomize teams,” “2: pick partners,” and “3: I don’t care.”

Right before the poll expired, I remembered to vote. When I opened the ballot, I could see how many people had voted for each option! 24 people had voted for randomization, 23 for picking partners, and 7 were indifferent. I was already planning to vote for “2: pick partners” (I did not want to subject an unwitting, unknowing, random partner to my horrible lack of hand-eye and a subsequent first-round elimination). However, this count told me that my vote could tie the election (at 24-24-7), and that I would 100% influence the outcome of the election so long as I was the last voter. In other words, my EB increased as my perceived P increased, and my motivation to vote grew stronger. 

When discussing presidential elections, we’ve often claimed that "p" is practically 0. We've also suggested that it can be almost-impossible to determine the individual i’s "p" with civilian-level information. However, given the small number of voters, simplicity of this ballot, and published vote counts, I could somewhat-accurately approximate the “p” that my vote would make a difference in the pickleball group chat.

I was ultimately not the last voter, and the other last-minute voters won the election for “1: randomize teams.” But, at least for a minute, I experienced the triumphant feeling of a non-zero p and a rational decision to vote, given b*p-c.

Good politicians vote for themselves...right?

In fourth grade, I decided to run for the Leadership Council. My elementary school was a Leader in Me school, which is a school intervention focused on student leadership. I knew I wanted to be on the council and help decide curriculum and school structure (so there was a massive B). 

There was one thing standing in my way. My best friend Kori was running too – and I thought I should be a good friend and vote for her. My mom thought this was ridiculous – “if you don’t vote for yourself, why should anyone else?”. Further, she argued, my vote could be decisive – and if I really want the role, I should vote for who I want to win. 

Little did my mom know, she was employing the minimax-regret decision rule. By voting for myself, I was minimizing the regret I would feel if I were to not win and it was decided by a single vote. 

And my vote ended up mattering. By just one vote, I was elected to be the Ms. Bentley’s class representative. I guess good politicians have to vote for themselves.

Breaking and entering...and free riding.

        The house I currently live in got broken into during the summer of 2022, while only two of my roommates were in town. Suddenly, while on vacation with my family, I was on the phone with home camera system companies. Of course, in the heat of the moment all of my roommates offered to pitch in to buy the cameras, or offered that their parents would pitch in. I didn’t think this was necessarily the right time to be stingy so I went ahead and bought 4 Blink cameras before Venmo-requesting anyone. 

Now, fourteen months later, no one has paid me back. I bring it up from time to time and say “remember when you all offered to pay for these?” but it never seems to land very well. However, I granted everyone access to the camera system’s App and they all reap the benefits of 24/7 camera security. This is an example of the free rider problem. The Blink is our shared resource that, due to its common benefit, has resulted in people simply not contributing to it at all. Once each of them saw that the other 7 roommates also offered to pay for the cameras, they felt less inclined to actually follow through with their contributions. Since it was a one-time payment, I can’t realistically just take the resource and its benefits away from my roommates, but economically speaking I probably should’ve. 

The Green House on Elliewood

I’m the engineering director at Forge, a nonprofit with a mission of empowering students and accelerating their early career growth. Until recently, we held the beautiful green house at #9 across from Bilt and Take It Away. The space functioned as a sort of better 1515 where students had 24/7 access to computers, projectors, books, study spaces, and more. But the space suffered from two large issues.

The first issue was free-riding by non-paying guests. Members were charged a small membership fee ($25/semester) to keep the space clean. Too often, members shared their unique pin code with non-paying friends. The shared resources of the space became messier and more wore down given the overuse compared to the membership revenue to replenish the space. But since this isn’t a public good (the door can be locked), the solution is simple: charge a higher price or fine members for allowing non-paying guests. The second issue was the negative externality of our neighbors below, Coupes. It’s loud, late-night music made the building shake and made it hard to study. The only period it was quiet at night was when Coupes was rebuilding itself after its kitchen fire, but then too the construction noise only shifted the externality from night to day. Perhaps the solution here would have been to buy out the space before they rebuilt themselves or find another study location with more favorable noise ordinance policies.

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 🤭.

Too Many Cars, Not Enough Space

I live in a house of 12 girls, 9 of which have cars. Yet, we only have 6 total parking spaces. So, we always need to have at least 3 street spots. That sounds easy enough until you realize we live on Chancellor St., which is packed with cars bumper to bumper day in and day out. We have found that the only way to maintain parking spots for everyone is for everyone to prioritize street parking; you see a spot, you take it. As a house, we came to this collective agreement to prioritize street spots. But as course loads pick up and schedules get busier, certain people have decided to neglect the agreement. They get home and immediately park in a parking spot.

If too many people neglect the agreement, the free rider problem arises and we end up with too many cars and not enough spots. Currently, the only reasons to park on the street are altruism (doing it so your housemates won’t get home without a spot) or the negative incentive of the possibility of you being the one left without a spot. Thus, I am proposing a new system tonight at our house meeting. We have a jar in our foyer. If you park in a parking space, you have to put a dollar in the jar. But if you park on the street, you get to take a dollar from the jar. This imposes a negative incentive to parking in a space and a positive one to parking on the street. I am hopeful this will help our problem of free riding but doubtful I will actually get all 12 girls to agree to this collective agreement.

The Rational Voter Hypothesis and Student Voting in Lambeth

Checking my email today, I felt frustrated by yet another reminder to vote in our dorm's student council election. While I've often faced criticism from my friends for my reluctance to vote, following Thursday's lecture, I've realized that my decision not to vote isn't due to laziness but instead is me innately following the rational voter hypothesis.

Lambeth is home to approximately 600 students, and I'm confident that the probability (P) of my vote influencing the election is very low (1/600 is almost negligible). Since I'm indifferent to the policies of the candidates, my Benefit (B) is effectively zero. Regarding costs, I've chosen to value my time at $15 per hour (equivalent to my current wage) and estimate that the process of watching the candidates' videos, reading their testimonials, and casting my vote takes about 30 minutes, costing me approximately $7.5 (C). When applying the formula PB - C (Mueller 14.1), the result is -7.5 (0*0 - 7.5). From a purely rational perspective, as this value is less than zero, it suggests that it is not in my self-interest to vote

Tiebout and the Tebow State

Charles Tiebout wrote an article titled "A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures."  Tim Tebow was a National Championship and Heisman Trophy winner at the University of Florida.  Last year, Florida had the largest positive net migration in the US among states.  In his writing, Tiebout focused mainly on migration and government expenditure structures in smaller sizes, and we are looking to apply this to a state level.  Interestingly, some of Tiebout's assumptions do not hold true, making this large migration even more significant.

If Florida won the migration game, California lost it: the former gained ~300,000 people while the latter lost roughly the same.  While there are people from other states in these numbers (including one of the best quantitative hedge funds in the world moving from Chicago to Miami), comparing the two generates interesting results.  To start, California is known as a blue state, and Florida is known as a red state.  The two governors clash on issues like transgender policy, immigration, and corporate governance.  In regards to Tiebout's work, the tax structure is different: California's income tax rate over $1,000,000 is 13.3%, while Florida's is, well, 0%.  While I'm not a statistician, I would argue that the movement of that many people out of California and the same amount (although not necessarily the same people) into Florida is in some way significant and that when reviewing their state government, at least when compared to before, people see more benefits to living in Florida and less to doing so in California.  

In his writing, Tiebout assumes no costs in moving: in reality there are extreme costs.  These are part of the personal calculus of moving, and still overcome by the perceived change in benefits.  Wages in California are much higher, but this may be attributable to a higher minimum wage and may be canceled out by a higher cost of living.  California has been known as the place for young people and growth (watch the show Silicon Valley or the movie The Social Network).  Now, there's a bestselling book detailing the failures of the third largest city in California.  Migration data give us insight into how people review their government (with limitations), and the recent data help us define and decipher how the American population views our states.