“Can You Send the Notes?” and the Class Before Thanksgiving

 I’m not sure if I’m going to class the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. For a variety of reasons, from traffic to family reasons to just wanting to spend a few days with Mom’s cooking, I’m still on the fence about my attendance. But will I get sent the notes for free? Well, if class notes are a public good, I will.

But are class notes a public good? Well, let’s run it through our two-pronged test of non-rival and non-excludable. I think most of us would agree that sharing class notes with a friend does not reduce our utility. Unless we are to get into a debate about how sharing notes with a friends could change a class curve at the end of the semester, I believe we can all get behind an unchanged utility function if our friend gets sent notes from class if they’re sick. Indeed, with this definition, some Samuelsonian economists might consider it a public good.

But what about excludability? In fact, it’s probably pretty easy to exclude me from notes from a day I missed. Even if I text a friend, they could ignore me or decline. They could charge me or even engage me in a bidding war for a picture of notes from Mr. Coppock’s lecture.

But what about socially? If a friend texted you, asking for notes from a day they were sick, would you really ask them their price? Would you ignore their text? I think not. Thus, I argue that class notes are socially non-excludable. Indeed, I can be quite dramatic. “my mom misses me dearly” “my dog wimpers each night I’m gone” “I haven’t seen my Gam Gam in years,” I could probably think of half a dozen excuses to miss class that would make you feel bad if you didn’t send me the notes. Thus, I would free ride off the attendance of others, and still gain some of the knowledge I would’ve gained from attending lecture. A classic example of a public good if you ask me.

So what’s the takeaway? Out of state kids – watch out. You have a text coming your way. I know you guys buy your flights for Tuesday evening just in case you have an exam. See you after Thanksgiving.

Environmental Voter Project and Rational Voting

The day before Election Day, I opened a letter in the mail from the Environmental Voter Project. I wasn’t quite sure what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t this letter. The Environmental Voter Project (EVP) believes that it’s easier and cheaper to guess who's an environmentalist and then convince them to vote than it is to convince a voter to start caring about the environment. First, they showed me my public voting record (where they listed me as not having voted in VA in 2019, even though I wasn’t even registered in this state), and then let me know that voter turnout on my street was predicted to be “Above Average” and that I should join my neighbors in casting a ballot. 

Largely due to Public Choice, my very initial reaction was, “Wow, they are trying really hard to add to my D factor!” To most, that would be a very strange sentence to blurt out, but in the context of Johnson’s theory of rational absenteeism, “D” references the idea of civic duty -- that there are some reasons beyond just your benefit for getting your candidate elected that encourages you to vote. Along with social duty, this variable can also include social pressure, utility for the act, and expressive voting. Using my record and my neighbors indicates they’re trying to increase social pressure on me. At the same time though, maybe this strategy can backfire. If my neighborhood is more likely to turn out than average that could also reduce the probability that my vote is decisive and thus reduce my likelihood to vote. It’s unclear whether this intervention should work or not based on theories of rational abstentionism. In terms of the evidence for either direction, EVP claims in their report that 730,000 of the 7.4 million non-voting and seldom-voting environmentalists they’ve contacted since the fall of 2015 are now consistent super-voters, which seems to indicate that their intervention does play a role. But that means only about 10% of those they've tried to reach become voters, and most of those people were contacted in the last 3 years, so it’s really hard to tell how consistent these “super-voters” truly are. 

Though it might be unclear which side the empirical evidence lands on, at the end of the day (though I was already planning on it), I did vote. Did this intervention subconsciously influence my D variable enough to offset the lower probability of my vote being decisive? 

The Paradox of Voting

 The Paradox of Voting claims that for the rational, self-maximizing individual, the cost of voting will outweigh the benefit. A voter will decide to vote if and only if PB - C > 0, and P is the probability that the individual's vote "matters", i.e. if it is decisive. Because it is so unlikely that the vote will change the results of the election, predicted benefit is extremely small and (any) costs of voting are larger. While in some cases an individual's vote is decisive, this model ignores many other reasons that one might have for voting. A better model is PB + D - C. In this equation, D other reasons to vote such as civic duty, utility derived from the act of voting, social pressure, and expressive value. D does not need to be multiplied by P, because the value derived by the voter does not depend on which candidate wins. 

Principle/Agent Comparison @ Internships

After learning about how to safeguard against the principle/agent problem, I thought back to two of my internships in which I was acting as an agent.  At my first internship, I was working for my ex-girlfriend's Dad, and I slacked off frequently.  I would play games on my phone, read the WSJ, and go on social media.  Looking back, it is somewhat hard to believe I got away doing all this.  But now, I realize why I was able to -- there were no safeguards to the principle/agent problem.  My boss did not monitor me, the output was random/not well-defined or results based, there were no incentives in my contract (hourly pay), and being his daughter's boyfriend, I wasn't exactly replaceable.  Sadly, my slacking was reigned in this past summer.  I interned for a commercial bank where safeguards were erected.  Specifically, my output was quantifiable, I reported to a manager, and alternates could be found easily.  The only time I was able to slack was when I worked virtually, which I think has the potential to be a post-covid problem for many companies.