Census Data: Private or Public?

    The U.S. Census Bureau runs many annual or monthly programs to guide congressional apportionment and federal funding. This data is a public good as it is non-rival and non-excludable. Anyone can use the data to conduct analysis and it is impossible to exclude as people are needed to conduct the polls. However, the Census suffers from the free rider problem, the poll rates have been falling over the past couple years. People will continue to use the data but fail to respond to polls sent out by the Bureau. As a result, the polls are not representative of the population they seek to emulate. 

    With the emergence of the iPhone and the increased digitalization, technology companies have unprecedented amounts of data on the U.S consumer. Along this shift, the government could turn to private companies to supplement or replace its own polling. This is already partially happening, the BLS uses a dataset purchased from J.D. Power to estimate its new-vehicles price index, and airline fares data from the Department of Transportation instead of running its own survey. If this trend continues, access to population data could depend on paying a company for it, turning a non-excludable public good into an excludable private one. 

I Swear We're Not That Messy.

I’ve lived with my roommates for over a year, and despite the substantial amount of time we spend together, collectively cleaning our apartment is the worst. Either we are too lazy, too busy, or unwilling to claim our mess. However, we prefer to keep a clean living environment. Since some of my roommates refuse to use a chore chart, how our apartment’s common spaces ultimately end up getting cleaned presents itself as a classic prisoner’s dilemma. 

The ultimate goal is to have clean common spaces in our apartment. We each have the choice between cleaning and not cleaning. Each of us has a dominant strategy: don’t clean and hope the other cleans up. The sub-optimal options would be for one person to clean and the other free ride on the results of the roommate’s cleaning. The Pareto Optimal solution would be for all of us to clean collaboratively, where even though we would have to put in effort, it would take less time and our apartment would be clean. However, we all expect someone else to do the work, and while we wouldn’t have to do the work (meaning higher utility), our apartment stays dirty (sub-optimal utility). 

This being said my roommates and I ironically hate a dirty living environment. Outside of this dilemma, we do end up cleaning our apartment, but rarely collaboratively. Our apartment ultimately gets cleaned, but at the sub-optimal utility levels where we all put in different amounts of effort. Maybe this year I can finally convince everyone to get the chore chart.

Why do we always have to stand at concerts?

I love live music. I am writing this as Mumford and Sons is playing at JPJ. While I wish I could go, I am going to see Sam Barber on Thursday, and I told myself I wouldn’t do two concerts in a week. But there is one thing that always makes me mad at concerts. And it’s a classic prisoner’s dilemma. Take Ting Pavilion here in Charlottesville. It has a great lawn in the back where you could set out some chairs or a picnic blanket. And yet I never do. Why? Because there are always a few people standing right in front of me blocking the view. 

If we all cooperated, we could sit down, be comfortable, and enjoy the concert without sore legs from standing for hours. However, since the people in front of me are always chasing the best view by standing up, they block my view and it is rational for me to stand up as well. At this point, we have ended up with about the same view we would have had sitting down, but with tired legs and people bumping into you.

Yet, everyone is acting rationally and will stand so as not to be the seated person with his view blocked by the standing crowd. As a result, we will likely not reach the desired cooperation that maximizes comfort and view unless the event venue provides different areas where you must either sit or stand. But my solution. Just get pit tickets so you can be closer to the stage since you’re going to be standing regardless.