Stigler in Nature!

In my English class, we read Justice William O. Douglas's famous dissent in Sierra Club v. Morton. A year after Stigler published his "capture theory" paper in 1971, the US Supreme Court ruled that a ski resort in the Mineral King Valley caused no substantive harm toward the Sierra Club members, affectively siding against nature. 

Douglas primarily advocates for granting legal standing to inanimate natural objects. But he also questions whether regulatory agencies can be effective protectors of the environment. Douglas observes that government regulation is often "oriented toward the interests of industry it is designed to regulate," calling out the Forest Service for being "notorious for its alignment with lumber companies."

I believe Douglas pulled from Stigler in this dissent, which means Stigler's ideas indirectly impacted the US environmental movement. 

 

 

Expressively Unhappy: A Voting Dilemma

Expressively Unhappy: A Voting Dilemma 

 The other day I got a letter informing me that "this year more Virginians than ever are voting! Don't be left behind!" Aside from the obvious confusion of why anyone would think a postcard is the best way to convince a twenty-year-old college student to vote, my public choice immediately questioned: am I not much less inclined to vote if more Virginians than ever are voting? As more and more people vote my expected benefit of voting gets lower and lower as more and more people crowd out any chance I have at a deciding vote. 

But beyond this, I wondered why it is that more people than ever are voting this year. Compared to previous years the sentiment feels like each side could be more enthusiastic about their own candidate, and as of October 1st 58% of Americans surveyed expressed they would want to see a third party according to this Gallup poll. Further, the graph below shows voter turnouts for primary elections in Virginia, which are relatively very low compared to previous years. Although you could argue that the numbers are low due to the inevitability of the two candidates, one of those two candidates is no longer running so it seems they were not so inevitable. 

Although we talked about expressive voting to show support, we did not consider expressive voting out of severe disapproval of the alternative. The way I see it: partisan voters may feel one way or the other about their own candidate, but more so than in previous years are driven to vote so they can tell themselves they voted against the alternative. 

Regulation in ᑓᑌᑎᕮ

In Dune, interstellar travel and trade are regulated and granted to the Spacing Guild, as described on Reddit:

The Spacing Guild enjoys its profits and share of political power. However, Navigators need spice to calculate safe travel paths. The only source of spice is on the planet Arrakis, or Dune. This makes spice the most precious resource in the economy, and thus also regulated. And vulnerable… 

Any disruption in spice supply would delay travels and render the Navigators powerless. The protagonist, Paul, capitalized on this when he threatened to destroy all spice fields, successfully coercing the Guild to his will. When Paul became emperor, he limited the supply of spice to the Guild, realizing how stagnant the previous regulation made the economy. 

In the long run, the Guild grew obsolete in power as spice became inevitably scarce. Instead navigation computers get developed, creating efficient and renewable space travel. Thus, regulation placed a barrier on innovation. It also led to the downfall of the industry it was meant to protect; economic forces prevailed over unstable political forces.

Am I the Best Roommate Ever?

 Figuring out housing for next year was one dilemma, but now that we have the lease signed, a new problem has arisen: picking rooms. In class, we discussed two types of costs resulting from collective action: decision making and external costs. In my current scenario, both of these costs are present. 

1. The decision making costs of coming together and choosing a room 

2. The external costs imposed by the room choices themselves 

In this example, external costs could be the unhappiness of a roommate who gets their last pick room based on the voting method. For example, if we did room selection dictator style, external costs would be extremely high. Now, I know this seems like it might be an issue with relatively low external costs, but 6 girls fighting for the best natural lighting in the house they’re going to spend all of 8 months in? Seems pretty high to me. Moving on, however, if we wanted to vote unanimously, decision making costs would also be high because it would be difficult to agree collectively if two people want the same room.

So, where does me being the best roommate ever come in? Well, I am particularly indifferent in my room choice for next year. Removing me as a collective decision maker reduces both the number of voters and the number of voters required to agree. My external costs are extremely low because, for me, any room in this house is an upgrade compared to my current room (shown below). So, since my external costs are low - I am making all of my roommates' lives easier in this collective action dilemma by potentially reducing external costs (taking the least preferable room) and decision making costs (one fewer person needed to reach unanimity).

                                         My room. That I share.

Florida's Threshold Between Life and Death

In class, we discussed voting thresholds in relation to cost minimization in collective action. In cases where external costs are very high, we agreed that the threshold for action ought to be high as well. There is no cost higher than a loss of human life and, as such, issues where people may lose their lives should, then, have high voting thresholds. But how high is high enough? How do we best balance external and decision-making costs?

In Florida, Parkland school shooter Nicholas Cruz was sentenced to life imprisonment  for his crimes. However, many people were upset by this decision, as the death penalty is an option for murder under Florida law, and they felt that this would have been a more appropriate punishment for Cruz. He was not given this sentence, as the threshold for applying the death penalty was unanimity among the jury, and jurors in his case voted 9-3 in favor of a death sentence, achieving a majority but not the required unanimity for a sentence of death. In response to this, Florida changed its laws, lowering the standard to apply a sentence of death to a vote of 8-4 (a 2/3 supermajority). 

Here, we see the debate between lowering external and decision-making costs clearly. Opponents of this law argue that the external costs of an unfair death sentence are too high for a lower threshold, and that many undeserving people would be more susceptible to facing these costs with the lower threshold. Proponents, on the other hand, feel that the system requiring unanimity was inefficient, and that the cost of one juror holding out and sparing a person deserving of death from receiving just punishment was too high.

High Stakes, Higher Waste: Lobbying as an All-Pay Auction

    In U.S. politics, the influence of lobbying groups located on K Street in Washington, D.C. has grown tremendously, but at what cost? As seen through the lens of public choice economics, lobbying operates much like an all-pay auction, where lobbyists must “bid” resources to sway policy decisions. These resources, whether time, money, or influence, are often monetary amounts given to politicians in the form of campaign contributions; the lobbying firm that pays the most will win the government favors. However, unlike a traditional auction where only the winner pays, in an all-pay auction, everyone pays their price regardless of winning. This means that in the high-stakes world of lobbying, all firms invest heavily, even though only one policy outcome will prevail. Therefore, most firms are expending resources they’ll never get back, leading to huge inefficiencies in this process. As a result, lobbying becomes a game of asymmetric information in which some firms may have disproportionate advantages over others.

(Photograph: Karen Bleier/AFP via Getty Images)

    Keep in mind that these inefficiencies extend beyond the firms or organizations directly involved in this rent-seeking behavior. When resources are spent on lobbying bids that fail to deliver, public choice economists argue that society as a whole loses out. These resources poured into lobbying are spent on trying to capture existing wealth and could instead be used to create new value. For example, these resources could otherwise be invested in innovation, public services, or improving infrastructure. Moreover, policies shaped through lobbying by those with the deepest pockets tend to prioritize the interests of the few instead of the broader public good, therefore unfairly distorting policy outcomes. As a result, the all-pay auction approach to lobbying not only wastes resources but also risks changing legislation to serve special interests rather than total societal welfare. Implementing lobbying reforms that promote transparency and limit the influence of money in politics could greatly diminish the inefficiencies of this rent-seeking behavior. Ultimately, this would reduce the waste of resources that could serve public, rather than private, interests.