Immobile Americans

According to Tiebout, people determine where to live based on varying revenue expenditure patterns in different polities, and if someone does not like their local community’s revenue expenditure pattern they will simply move to a different area.  Based on this theory it would seem that people would often be moving, especially from the state they were born in, as they had no choice where they were born or what the revenue expenditure pattern is like in their native community.  However, as this article in The Buffalo News shows, Americans are rarely moving from the state that they were born in, and if they do move it is not a result of the state’s revenue expenditure pattern.  According to the article, only 1.5% of Americans move from the state they were born in, a figure less than that of their parents, and if they do move it is not “to find a state with lower or no income taxes.”

Instead of moving based on a state’s revenue expenditure pattern, people are moving for other factors such as weather, less expensive housing, and a new job.  The article directly contradicts Tiebout’s assumption that people face no job restrictions, since a job is one of the primary causes of people moving or not moving.  As stated in the article, decreased job turnover in the United States has been a primary reason of the lack of Americans moving, showing that people are heavily restricted by their job location.  The article opposes Tiebout’s theory that a community’s revenue expenditure pattern is the driving force behind people moving; instead it shows that state policy makers altering income taxes in hopes of attracting more people to their state is almost entirely futile, and that if a person is moving it is because of weather or a new job, not as a result of a state’s revenue expenditure pattern.

Walter Shapiro's main concern in his 1989 article entitled The Gap Between Will and Wallet is the concept of National Service. He explains that, while voluntary national service were widely popular, the support for the idea was greater than the amount of people actually willing to make the commitment to the service. A large majority of those who signed up for service programs, such as in homeless shelters of hospice centers, came from low-income families because they were more willing to except the unfavorable work for a low wage. In an effort to renew the spirit of national service as a means to promote citizenship and civic engagement, the idea for a Citizen Corps was proposed. This program would consist of 1 million high school graduates who would commit to a minimum of 1 year working of the Citizen Corps. They were given two options: work for $100/week in places such as homeless shelters and underprivileged communities, or enter the armed forces for a wage far below that of regular soldiers. This program would be a requirement to be eligible to receive any sort of federal aid for college tuition. As an incentive, those who participated in the program would receive a $10,000 voucher for each year of civilian service, $24,000 after a two-year military commitment. The response to this program varied greatly. There were those who supported the idea as a way to bring back national service and "close the gap" between the willingness and desire to provide service but reluctancy to make the financial or time sacrifice. However, many viewed this as an extreme means of government coercion to perform service, and placed the poor at a disadvantage since they were the population more likely to need the federal aid, and therefore required to participate in the program, in order to attend college.

This idea of national service can be related to our discussions in class about public goods. The benefits of national service are clear: increased civic engagement, support to lower-income and disadvantaged communities, increased citizenship, etc... However, due to difficulty in recruiting participants, the demand for national service exceeded the supply, and the supply of national service at that time was less than the optimal quantity to society. Society could be made better off if more national service was provided. Therefore, the government took action to essentially create public provision of a service currently subject to the private decisions of citizens with regards to participation or abstention front he program. The vouchers can represent a version of a subsidy to those who choose to participate in the program, since the opportunity cost of their 1 year commitment  was either the salary, likely a higher one, they could have made in their next best job alternative, or the value they placed on the higher education they could have pursued instead. The issue, however, is the method of forcing participation in the program. By making it a requirement to receive federal aid for college, those who cannot afford college, and choose to not participate are made worse off, and may likely not be able to attend college. On the other hand, those who could afford the full college tuition were not subjected to the decision between college and the national service program, and may have been less likely to join. This created a notable selection effect for participants. Therefore, Citizen Corps, while attempting to increase the supply of a public good, is not is not a fully pareto-optimal solution.

Mini-Max Regret Theory in Mid-Term Elections

When we studied voter abstention as explained by David Johnson, one of the central issues we had to confront—after recognizing the strong disincentives to exercise the franchise—was why there was any civic participation at all. Considering how low the potential payoff generally is, why isn't voter participation in the single digits? Why does anyone go to the polls? We tossed around a few different theories. The theory that appeals most to me is one Johnson explicitly considers: the expressive power of the vote. I discussed this in my last blog post about Hong Kong. However, we also considered the "mini-max regret" explanation. Under this theory, people make decisions based on regrets, regardless of possibilities and independent of possible payoffs. Given a set of choices, then (such as voting vs. non-voting), people will choose the option that minimizes their maximum possible regret. We used this model to show that the maximum regret under not voting is larger than the maximum regret under voting, and therefore people may choose to vote.

It occurred to me that this theory of conceptualizing people's actions via regret-minimization (rather than utility-maximization) might apply to all sorts of situations. In this article from The Wall Street Journal, we see there is a combination of widespread voter apathy about the upcoming mid-term elections in Congress and a strong possibility of electing a Republican-majority legislature. Leaving aside the question of voter participation, we can use the mini-max regret theory to understand why people might be voting for Republican candidates over Democrat candidates. The article states: "But the GOP's advantage springs more from intense anti-Obama feelings than from a wave of voters who believe Republicans will transform Washington." Senator Lindsay Graham confirms this sentiment. What it expresses, in my opinion, is precisely what the mini-max regret theory predicts: people often make decisions based on what they don't want, rather than what they affirmatively do want. For voter participation, people don't want the possible regret of failing to cast the tie-breaking vote; for choosing political candidates, people often make decisions based on who they don't want in office. Specifically in this case, the regret of having more Democrats like Obama in office is the controlling factor in voters' minds, rather than some positive expected utility from having Republicans in control. Although in practice cost-minimization and utility-maximization frequently go hand-in-hand, how we think about behavior changes subtly when you employ the mini-max regret theory. I believe it provides a useful framework for understanding voter behavior in the upcoming federal elections.

Voting on Bodybuilding

Three weeks ago, the International Federation of Bodybuilding and Fitness held its 50th annual Mr. Olympia competition. Similar to the electoral college in the U.S., the winner of the race is chosen by representatives instead of through popular vote. These judges are expected to be able to critique contestants better than the average person could, while still doing a good job at representing popular opinion.

However, the judges' scoreboards this year were far from popular opinion. Phil Heath, the three-time winner of the Mr. Olympia competition, was the judges' favorite this year and took home the grand prize of $275,000. On the other hand, a survey by bodybuilding.com indicates that the people wanted Kai Greene to win. Kai Greene won second place in the official competition, even though he had a majority (61%) of the people's votes in the survey above. Phil Heath only had 16% of the popular vote, and was expected to win second place.

This is similar to the presidential election of 2000, when G. W. Bush won in the electoral college against Al Gore, despite Gore winning more votes among the population. The representatives in the 2014 Mr. Olympia competition chose a candidate who was very far from a plurality, meanwhile the electoral college in 2000 chose a candidate who had a half of a million less votes among the population's voters. This makes me wonder if the benefit of having voter representatives really does exceed the cost.

The Brazilian Median Voter

The current electoral situation in Brazil is a good example of the median voter theorem in action and how imperfect information on who exactly the median voter is causes different policies to emerge. Evidently, the fact that an election is a multi-policy (and in Brazil a multi-party) game, makes it difficult for us to use Downs' model without serious simplifications. That being said, this Bloomberg piece does a good job narrowing down the issue to "change or caution."

This notion of change vs. caution is interesting because in actuality, there is no such choice - the real choice Brazilians have is between change and more change, since the ongoing economic recession in the country has made "change" a necessary platform for rational candidates. That is, while we may not know exactly who the median voter is, he (she) wants change. In that sense, parties in Brazil are all running change-oriented platforms - some argue for more profound changes, some seek less change, but they all are attempting to find the exact balance that will allow the change-seeking yet risk adverse median voter to sympathize with them.

The fact that all parties advocate some form of moderate change - e.g. keeping up with social welfare programs while promoting anti-corruption legislation - shows us the attempt to cater towards a moderate voter. The fact that parties differ in their views of what constitutes moderate policies shows how it is difficult to be at the middle of the spectrum when you don't know where that middle is. That is, with pre-election polls constantly fluctuating it has been hard to decide which platform had the most strength, and in consequence we have seen a lot of strategic movements ahead of the election as parties fine-tune their propaganda. Now, as we head into the second round, the game shifts into a duopoly and participants are able to a) get a better idea of who the median voter is, and b) promote even bigger rhetorical shifts without loosing votes as easily as in a multiparty scenarios. In that sense, the next few weeks should provide us with a lot of interesting material, and perhaps even another blogpost.

Rock and Roll and 'Rational Ignorance'

Everyone knows that economists wear their ignorance like a badge of honor.  Many don't realize, however, that rock-musicians share this passion for political naiveté. Take Tea Leaf Green's song "Vote on Tuesday" for example.  As clearly stated in the opening line, "I don't want to vote on Tuesday," the protagonist of the song holds no desire to exercise his franchise in the upcoming election for county judge.  To justify his abstention, this citizen-voter cites the fact that he "never read the pamphlet[s]" that provide information on the respective candidates.

Naturally, this song reveals the protagonist's preferences; at the sufficient level of knowledge required to make an informed decision, the rising marginal costs of education, namely the associated time costs, exceed his expected marginal benefit from voting.  Thus, given the basic, rational agent model, this voter will choose to not vote.  This strategic abstention demonstrates his rational ignorance, as he adheres to basic economic logic, maximizing his utility through avoiding the high costs of candidate education.  As described by Johnson, this voter's decision to be rationally ignorant and abstain will distort the greater voting economy by heightening the political influence of others.  Like most rock ballads, the seemingly simple lyrics of "Vote on Tuesday" actually carry deep, relevant economic lessons hidden below the surface.
-Riley

Corrupt Prison Bankers

Corruption in the American prison system has run rampant as state governments look for an easy way to cut costs. Media investigations have uncovered appalling conditions in our nations' jails by private management companies that have been contracted to run the prison system. As states look to capitalize on the prison system, the financial burden is increasingly being placed on the families of inmates, forcing them to pay for the inmate's room/board, electricity, clothes, and other necessities. Historically, the inmates' families have used a govt. system to wire or mail money to their relatives with little or no fees. But in a recent example of outsourcing, almost all states have switched over to the private market for their banking, requiring funds to go through a contracted company called JPay. The Time's article details some of the extortion-like policies that JPay is using to squeeze families out of their money. Fees to wire money can reach 45% and one woman claims that sending money for her son to buy a pair of underwear costs her $100. By all accounts, JPay is a questionable company that has a complete monopoly over the prison banking system.

JPay vs. a public prison banking system highlights the complications of making a public-good(or service) private. Changing to a private system could potentially create savings from all parties and would have made Buchanan a very happy man. But corruption, greediness, and a near monopoly has led to a broken system. Perhaps if the monopoly was broken up, an open market could find a amiable solution but for now, many families are feeling the pain from losing a public service.

Who Will Win Kansas?

According to this article, there is a high probability that the independent representative Greg Orman will unseat republican Pat Roberts as the senator of Kansas. This is an interesting issue to examine because the Republican Party has historically dominated Kansas. The first NBC/Marist poll released on Sunday shows that Orman is gaining unprecedented popularity because the Democratic Party is just as much as unpopular as the Republican Party in the state of Kansas. In addition, the democratic voters who supported the withdrawn democratic candidate Chad Taylor might want to vote for Orman because of their anti-republican sentiment. If we examine this phenomenon under the normal distribution curve, the reason that the independent party is gaining support is because they are able to capture the portion of median voters. The distribution in the two extremists of the spectrum is small, and therefore has no decisive power. Even though the second NBC/Marist poll released on Sunday shows a tie between Orman and Roberts due to the fact that 19% of democrats are indecisive, those undecided voter are more likely to vote for Orman. This is because the independent party is located closer to the left hand side of the distribution spectrum, and consequently there is a higher chance that Orman will receive support from these voters.

Polling: The Battle Against Rationality Continues

Responding to a poll, whether it is a political questionnaire or assessing a consumption good or service, is a costly enterprise for the rational consumer. Polls traditionally involve long phone calls, generally placed around dinner time when the family is sitting down to eat, and include very many questions regarding levels of satisfaction and premature opinions. Responding to these questions in a comprehensive way that accurately conveys how the voter feels can be a costly and time consuming matter. Furthermore, not everyone has a home phone and prefer to only carry cell phones, which may mean the results will not be representative of the entire population. In effect, the costs of polling have increased. However, the face of polling is changing. In 2012, Microsoft, through Xbox, conducted a presidential poll. Polls via text messages are going to be a new strategy to gather information, as well as polls via television, which allow the poller to skip ads to give information instead.

The question remains, however, if these new methods will be enough to make responding to polls worth while. Even though the new strategies are more convenient because they allow people to respond to questions on their own time, they still require the voter to take time out of their day to answer questions that may not even have an effect on political parties' platforms. The rational voter will still abstain unless the benefits are high enough to make it worth while, e.g. if they really hate ads.

Flip-Flopping and the Median Voter Theorem

In this video, Anderson Cooper addresses Obama's change of opinion on gay marriage. According to the clip, when Obama was running for a state senate election in Chicago, he indicated to his voters that he supported gay marriage. Years later when running for U.S. Senate, Obama announced that he was against gay marriage. Cooper asks his two guests on the show whether they think that this change of opinion was brought about by political motives, and both give answers that sound as if they were taken from a page from Buchanan and Tullock's piece on the median voter theorem. The first guest (6:04) notes that Obama was working with two different collections of voters: first, Chicago, which is a city that is "very progressive," and later, all of Illinois, which includes a wider and less overall progressive collection of opinions. The first guest explains that once Obama realized this shift in voter pools, he strategically announced his change of opinion of gay marriage. The second guest (7:05) agrees that Obama's declaration of his disapproval of gay marriage was a strategic one, but doubts that Obama used good strategy. The second guest thinks that Obama is misinterpreting the distribution of voters. According to the second guest, Americans are becoming more accepting of gay marriage than Obama has realized, and Obama is thus "falling behind the curve." This language used by both guests indicates that they think that Obama is considering the distributions of his voters and reacting to them in a strategic way.

The ideas of the second guest make me wonder if there can be a possible justification of political flip-flopping. In class, we hesitated to say (and some of us refused to say) that it is morally acceptable for a candidate to say that he supports Policy X when he sees that most of his voters support Policy X, and then immediately support policy ~X as soon as he wins the election. However, what if the distribution of voters during the election shows that most people support Policy X, then a gradual shift in general opinion shows that most people support Policy ~x a few years into the winning candidate's term? If the distribution of attitudes of voters can in fact change as drastically as Cooper's second guest seems to think, maybe it is justifiable for a candidate to change his opinions along with those of his people, or maybe not. The question then becomes: is it more important for a candidate to stand by his original opinion of the constitutionality of a certain issue, or for a candidate to match and serve the changing preferences of the people?

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela is notorious for his illustrious political career, culminating in his election as the first President in post-Apartheid South Africa; his career can essentially be broken down into two stages, each of which is especially relevant to Downs' median voter theorem. During the first stage of his career, he spent 26 years in prison as a result of fighting the ensuing changes after "in 1948, the Afrikaner Nationalist party won the whites-only general election, and began to institute its policy of apartheid across South Africa." During this stage of his political career, his primary focus was on attaining suffrage for the non-white populace. The realization of his dream of an election open to voters of all races in 1994 effectively represented the appearance of a huge new mode on the voter preferences density function. The result was that the point at which the median voter lay on the policy spectrum was vastly different. Due to the immense size of the influx of new voters, the median voter was likely located extremely close to the new mode on the voter preferences density function. The second stage of his career was as an actual politician and party leader as he attempted to steer the proposed policies of his party toward the preferences of the new median voter. Ultimately, Mandela proved adept at identifying the preferences of the median voter as well as at advocating policies closest to those favored by the median voter, and consequently he won the Presidency.

Is he really the villain?

Venezuela is a two-party political system with a bimodal distribution near the extremes. The radical left is currently governed by President Nicolas Maduro, successor of Hugo Chavez. The right extreme, on the other hand, was originally lead by Henrique Capriles and it is now under the umbrella of Mr. Leopoldo Lopez. Guided by radically opposing ideologies, the Venezuelan population is divided in these two parties. The government advocates a socialist ideology, whereby the economy has experienced rocketing inflation, nationalization of private companies, plummeting currency, and increasingly short supply of food, medicine and other consumer products. Alternatively, the radical opposition believes in democracy and a free market economy.

Downs explains in his paper that a two-party system of this distribution will pose a threat to democracy: “whichever party wins will attempt to implement policies radically opposed to the other party’s ideology… This means that government policy will be highly unstable…” Indeed, after 14 years of an unstable socialist regime, the rightist mass demands the government to take action for fixing the economy and addressing social problems like insecurity. The problem lies in reaching a consensus on how the right should demand this government action.

Unlike Mr. Lopez, Henrique Capriles believes that protests and demonstrations will not achieve a change of government. Instead, he advocates for a legal electoral exit (scheduled for 2015). The extremist right is stronly criticizing Capriles, claiming he has submitted himself to the government by not supporting the opposition’s protests. But maybe Capriles is the one that understands Downs’ argument. Capriles is strategizing to move away from the radical right towards the medium-voter. While Maduro and Lopez are both hoping to increase their support at the extremes, Capriles is aiming to move voters to the center of the distribution by uniting the radical speeches under one goal: a future for Venezuela. If Downs’ political cycle holds true, then centralizing the population under a normal distribution is Venezuela’s best bet on exiting the black hole of a socialist revolution. 

War and the Median Voter Theorem

The Islamic State militant group has inflicted horrific amounts of damage to the people of Iraq. Although they have only become popular in American news media within the past month or two, the pain and suffering that the Islamic State militants are willing to cause is not news for the Commander in Chief. Many people accuse President Obama of acting too late against the Islamic State. This group has grown much larger and more powerful as it has taken over more cities in Iraq. It would have been easier to defeat the Islamic State if action had been taken earlier. However, taking action earlier would have resulted in less calamity. I believe that Americans support the War on Terror most when danger is clear. A large portion of Iraq losing control to the Islamic State has illustrated clear danger, whereas preventing the Islamic State from making gains would depict them as less of a threat. I think that recent news had changed voters' distribution when considering their support for fighting the Islamic State. Three months ago, much fewer voters would be willing to support this war than today. This means that the median voter has shifted in further support of the war due to the gains that the Islamic State has made. Acting against the Islamic State later rather than sooner makes the Democratic Party more representative of the median voter, due to escalated danger posed by the Islamic State. With a presidential election only two years away, the Democratic Party does not want to portray themselves as 'too right-winged,' which could lose them left-tailed voters as a punishment. I think that waiting to fight the Islamic State was a political move to help Democrats win more votes in the upcoming presidential election. Some people may believe that this is very unethical. However, if the Democrats believe that winning the Presidential election may provide a long run benefit that the Republicans would not provide, such as better policies on dealing with terror organizations, than the humanitarian cost of delaying action against the Islamic State may be worth the benefit of winning extra votes in the upcoming presidential election.

Paying people to vote?

The city of Los Angeles is considering paying its residents to vote, a proposal aimed at increasing voter turnout.  Last year, only 23.3% of eligible Los Angeles voters cast ballots, leading city officials to consider methods of incentivizing voting.  In his article “Voting, Rational Abstention, and Rational Ignorance,” Johnson argues that citizens do not vote because the cost of voting exceeds the expected benefits.  The costs involved in voting are numerous and include becoming educated on the candidates and issues, missing work, registering, waiting in line, and more.  The benefits derived from voting depend on the probability of casting a decisive vote, which in Los Angeles is basically zero.  However, the benefits of voting can increase when there is social pressure to vote but since turnout rates are so low, clearly the majority of people are not affected by this pressure.

The proposal to compensate citizens for casting a ballot would clearly increase the expected benefits from voting.  However, it is unlikely that compensation for voting would exceed or even meet the costs of missing work and becoming informed on the issues and candidates.  A study conducted in Lancaster, CA revealed that with a $25 incentive payment, the turnout rate could be increased to 19.2% from an uncompensated turnout rate of 14.9%.  This increase is not huge and indicates that monetary incentives will not be a sufficient means of raising citizen’s expected benefits above the costs.  

While LA’s payment proposal focuses on increasing the benefits of voting, other options that decrease the costs of voting could be more effective.  Such options include automatic registration of eligible voters, being able to vote by phone, or being able to vote on multiple days.  A policy that simultaneously increases the expected benefits of voting and decreases the costs stands a better chance of spurring higher voter turnout. 

Can Property Rights Protect Nature?

In this article, John Stossel claims assigning property rights to nature will do more to protect the environment than allowing the government to protect it. He claims that when people own things and there is a simple, honest court system, the environment would be less subject to depletion. This is similar to the Coasian solution to externalities (people would act to keep their property from being harmed, while also protecting society's interests), suggesting private property rights can limit negative effects upon society, although Coase would go further in suggesting that court systems would not even be needed. Stossel does not only claim a Coasian-like solution would work; he also claims that private property rights can actually protect the environment more than government can. When the government attempts to protect the environment by making it public, you have what Stossel calls 'tragedy of the commons," which is when people treat/value public property worse than they would treat/value there own. However, I do not think Stossel takes into account the assignment problem very well.

Rational Ignorance: Exposing a flaw in Tiebout's Set of Assumptions

After reading both Tiebout and Johnson, I discovered a contradiction in the foundations of their arguments. One of the first assumptions that Tiebout mentions in his paper is that citizens have perfect knowledge of the revenue-expenditure patterns of all polities. If we combine this with his other assumptions, we follow Tiebout as he contends that a person will take her knowledge of the spending patterns of each polity and simply move to the one that gives her the most utility. Thus, for Tiebout, it is rational for a person to be informed about the revenue-expenditure patterns of her community and the other communities around her, because she stands to gain from moving to the community that has a spending pattern that she likes best. Although Johnson builds his argument toward a conclusion unrelated to Tiebout's, he also touches on the question of political knowledge, and gives an opposite answer. To Johnson, it is not rational for a citizen to be knowledgeable of political issues, which certainly include (but are not limited to) community revenue-expenditure patterns. To Johnson, this rational ignorance stems from the fact that each community member has a less-than-miniscule chance of affecting revenue-expenditure patterns and other political issues her community must decide on. So which is it: is it rational for a citizen to be uninformed about her community’s political issues, specifically revenue-expenditure patterns, or not?

This article (see 5th and 6th paragraphs) that summarizes polls of California voters suggests that very few of them know much about the revenue-expenditure patterns of their state. When pollsters gave voters a list of California's four largest spending categories and asked them to identify which one was the largest of the four, only 22% were able to choose the right answer (public schools). Responders were clearly ignorant, at least with respect to this question, considering they would have performed better if they had randomly guessed. A different question on the poll revealed that only 9% of Californian voters surveyed knew both the largest source of revenue and the largest spending category of their state.** If Tiebout is right, then why do so few people know about the revenue and expenditures of their state? It could be because only a small minority of those polled choose to act rationally and learn their state's spending patterns. This explanation isn't all that satisfying, though, because it suggests that our society is one full of irrational people and that the homoeconomicus is a rare breed. Assuming that most people of a community do in fact act rationally, the only other explanation is that Tiebout's assumptions are too bold and do not capture reality. My prediction is that people don’t take the time to learn about the revenue-expenditure patterns of their communities not only because they have a miniscule chance of affecting them (as Johnson suggests) but also because they are much less mobile than Tiebout is willing to acknowledge and often do fall victim to job constraints and other causes of imperfect mobility. If it is the case that people cannot easily move into communities that employ preferable revenue-expenditure patterns, then it is irrational for people to waste time researching those patterns, and thus Johnson’s idea of rational ignorance reigns supreme over Tiebout’s ideas of incentivized learning and acting.   

**I am aware that the poll results demonstrate how much citizens know about their state, a much larger political entity than those that Tiebout shaped his argument around. I'm assuming that city-centered polls wouldn't vary drastically from this Californian one, but if they do, then I owe Tiebout more credit than I am giving him. 

Don't Cry For Me, Hong Kong

The "rational abstention" argument in David Johnson's piece on voter ignorance presents democracy-lovers with a cynical challenge: do citizens really have any stake in elections? According to Johnson's theory, voters in large democracies have very little reason to actually exercise their franchise—that is, they are rational in declining to vote. Johnson reaches this conclusion by focusing on the instrumental  value of an individual's vote. Since the probability that any single vote will decide an election is vanishingly small, even those voters who place a premium on one outcome over the other (that is, voters who value Candidate A over Candidate B to the tune of a couple thousand—or even million—dollars) can expect a laughably small expected payoff. In the face of such nihilistic odds, the real surprise is why anyone votes at all.

But the real world furnishes us with examples of ordinary citizens going to great lengths—and great personal cost—to secure their vote. Recently, Hong Kong has been wracked by protests over the slow pace of democratization in this British-colony-turned-Chinese-Special-Autonomous-Zone. The culmination of months of unease over the increasingly authoritarian control exerted by Beijing, this weekend's protests featured the use of tear gas and pepper spray, and still the protestors turned out in the tens of thousands to demand their right to democratic elections. How does such passion develop in the apathetic atmosphere predicted by Johnson's rational abstention argument? In a fully democratic Hong Kong, these protestors' votes would have low instrumental value—surely not worth the costs associated with protesting against heavily-armed and aggressive police.

Two hypothesis could explain why those in Hong Kong do, in fact, care about their franchise. The Expressive Voter hypothesis, considered by Johnson, posits that people vote to express something about themselves: civic-mindedness, for example. Going to the polls and voting for a candidate or referendum outcome gives intrinsic utility. The expressive appeal of voting may help to explain why the citizens of Hong Kong have gone to such lengths to demand free elections. A second hypothesis I would put forward is one we will likely come across later in Caplan's The Myth of the Rational Voter. In his book, Caplan argues that the so-called Self-Interested Voter Hypothesis (SIVH) is inaccurate. That is, he contends that people don't vote by considering possible pay-offs to themselves, but rather vote according to their vision of what the best society would be. Although disregarding the SIVH doesn't eliminate the cost-benefit analysis entirely, it certainly helps to divorce voting from its instrumental value to the individual voter. Under this model, the citizens of Hong Kong value their franchise because it is an integral part of their vision of the best society (a democratic one), and not because of specific benefits they expect to receive through it.

Whatever the explanation, the implication is clear: people care about their vote, regardless of the strong (and rational) forces urging apathy. This concern is on display in Hong Kong.