What's the Deal with the Delian League?

 While studying the Ancient Greeks, I came across something quite interesting. During the Persian Wars and the time that preceded the First Peloponnesian War, interest groups were at the center of Athens and its policy. In this case, the interest group at hand wasn't one in the traditional sense, like one might think of when they refer to the NRA. Instead, this interest group was far more similar to NATO. It was known as the Delian League, and it was formed as a preventative measure against the inevitable Persian invasion in the future.

This group was quite large, consisting of most of the islands in the Aegean Sea and quite a few other Hellenic cities. Its goal was to create a force of Greeks that was enough to rival the Persians, so the selective incentive here was that by joining one would be protected against Xerxes and his foreign invaders. Protection was to the Delian League as a duffle bag is to the NRA. But soon, they realized that the Persians weren't coming back and that even if they did, Athens, the leader of the group, could handle it even without their tribute payments. In a sense, they realized that the duffle bag wasn't as valuable as the little flier had made it out to be. As a result, many islands, such as Naxos, tried to free ride and get the public good of protection without paying tribute. (Of course, this was free riding since they knew Athens wouldn't allow the Persians to enter and gain any Greek territory). Athens didn't love this and then forced membership, turning it into an Empire with taxes instead. Even back then, people hated free riders.

The Tuesday @ 9:30 Union

         As we all know, on Tuesday we held a unanimous vote to hold class on election day instead of having a lecture on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Is it a coincidence that this occurred at the end of our lecture on Olson’s theory on interest groups and how their size determines their success? I think our quick vote spoke to his theory. As our class was yelling new dates for class across the room to one another, I thought to myself, “this would be a nightmare in a large lecture-sized class”. In a larger group like that it would be nearly impossible to reach a unanimous decision, due to high organizational costs and free-riding. Students that refuse to contribute (or in this case vote), whether it be purposeful or not, would be considered free-riding and prevent a unanimous vote from being reached.

        In a way, our class acted like a small, monopolistic interest group. We were effective at this size because it was easier to incentivize everyone to vote as well as monitor the two folks who were absent and quickly communicate to them the situation. The social pressure present in small groups was also evident in our class. I heard one peer say “I would’ve had to be here the Tuesday before Thanksgiving anyways, but I voted for you guys!”. I am sure she would’ve liked having the full day off on election day, but since she could hear how passionate everyone else in the room was, she felt obligated to vote to move class. Overall, I think our collective bargaining as a small interest group was very successful, which is largely due to the small size of our class.

Regulatory Capture and my former employer

Following my first year at UVA, I returned home to Springfield, Virginia for the Summer in search of employment. With few options available to me, I found work at an Amazon fulfillment center (a warehouse), and started work at the end of May. For the next four months, I worked 11.5-hour labor-intensive shifts, from 6:00 p.m. to 5:30 a.m., four days a week, for the privilege to enjoy a $15.95 an hour compensation. As you can probably guess, it was a dream come true.

While I was there, I learned of Amazon's efforts to raise the federal minimum wage, which they proudly publicize. Since 2018, Amazon has held its starting wage at $15 an hour, which is over double the federally required minimum of $7.25 an hour. If Amazon is already willing to compensate their employees at a higher than required rate, then why do they lobby Congress to ask for this regulation? 

Ultimately, with massive revenues and market share, Amazon can afford to pay its thousands of warehouse workers and delivery drivers $15 an hour. At the same time, Amazon knows that some of its competitors, without such economies of scale, cannot afford the same costs. An increase in the federal minimum wage would create a barrier to entry for smaller firms incapable of producing with the same costs, giving Amazon even more market power. Who would have guessed that Amazon is acting in their rational self-interest?

The War on Margarine!

On August 7, 1886, Congress passed the Margarine Act. This imposed steep annual fees for licenses on manufacturers ($600), wholesalers ($480), and retailers ($48), and a tax of two cents per pound on the product. In 1902, Congress passed a tax on margarine five times higher than the 1886 act, and two years later the Supreme Court upheld the law’s constitutionality. Congress finally repealed the margarine tax in 1950 (poor Prof. Elzinga...), and Wisconsin became the last state to repeal its anti-margarine regulations in 1967.

Capture theory, in the context of regulation, suggests that regulatory agencies may be "captured" or heavily influenced by the industries they are meant to regulate. Now, how does this tie in with margarine?  At the time, the dairy industry held significant sway over and a large impact on government decisions. The Margarine Act was essentially pushed through by dairy interests to restrict the production and sale of margarine. Furthermore, the regulations imposed by the Margarine Act, such as coloring and labeling requirements that made margarine less appealing to consumers, were essentially a result of dairy lobbying influence on the regulatory process in order to "protect public interest." This was also a move to protect the butter industry from competition, as margarine was becoming a cheaper alternative (aka a substitute!). The regulatory decisions were influenced by the dairy industry to preserve its own interests. This is a great example of how regulatory agencies can become captive to the industries they are meant to oversee. Hopefully, this more in-depth exploration of the war on margarine got your brain churning!

Roller Coasters and Recess Bells

     If you went to Virginia public schools growing up, then you know that schools often started after Labor Day. But did you ever wonder why? No? Well I’m gonna tell you the answer anyways. The Kings Dominion amusement park lobby played a significant role in pushing for legislation that mandated public schools to begin their academic year after Labor Day. This decision, rooted in economic interests, reflects the ideas outlined by George Stigler in "The Theory of Economic Regulation." Stigler's theory suggests that industries often seek to use the state's regulatory power to enhance their profitability. In this case, Kings Dominion aimed to safeguard its financial interests by ensuring that schools started after Labor Day, believing this would boost tourism and the park's revenue.

    However, a critical analysis of this decision reveals its limited economic impact. A report from Old Dominion University found that the economic ripple effect of tourism spending during Labor Day weekend was relatively small, accounting for only approximately $40 million, or one-sixth of one percent of total tourism expenditures in the state. So essentially, the lobby has its power to exercise political control rather than to tangibly impact Kings Dominion’s revenues. The Kings Dominion lobby successfully lobbied for this law, highlighting Stigler's assertion that regulation is often acquired and operated for the benefit of the industry it seeks to protect.

Homeland economics: the tight-rope walk of trying to prepare for the future

    Since 2008 it is no secret that the United States has experienced significant economic turmoil from economic shocks such as the housing crash, covid, and on-going wars across the Atlantic. These shocks caused a reaction from policy makers called "Homeland economics". The supply chain issues from covid and the energy crisis from Russia's war on Ukraine have created the want to strenghten domestic production, so that future disruptions are avoided. Predictions of future pandemics and international conflict seem like good reasons to prepare our economy with foresight. The means of "Homeland economics" lie in industrial policy. Industrial policies include subsidies, tax-breaks, or protective regulations for domestic producers, including incentives for firms to "re-shore" production back to the USA. With the goal of fortifying the economy for long-term success and creating sustained benefits felt by society, the use of government regulation often fails to follow through on its original intentions.   

    George Stigler wrote, "As a rule, regulation is acquired by the industry and designed and operated for its benefit". When these industrial policies are created they look to model successful usages of regulation such as China or South Korea; however, without proper implementation regulation fails to benefit society. From the many examples given by Bill Gurley's presentation, it is evident that more often than not, regulation is not implemented correctly and consequently benefits the bigger, incumbent firms. Homeland economics looks to stabilize inflation and increase domestic innovation and production in industries like green-energy and microchip manufacturing; however, it is likely inflation and price levels would increase if global trade is restricted; and furthermore, domestic innovation could be snuffed out by unintended barriers while production would be controlled by a limited number of firms. Overall, I believe that trying to prepare our economy for a tumultuous future is a worthwhile cause; however, with the wrong policies in place Stigler's model suggests that private interests would out-gain public interest causing a net loss for society. If the true goal is for societal benefits and not special interests, the industrial policies in place cannot restrict entry into the markets and prices must be determined by market forces, otherwise is likely that few will benefit and most will pay. 

AC and Voting

     Living with roommates means there are certain things you have to agree upon so you can live amicably. One of those things is how high/low you set the AC. The way we determine the AC is by simple majority with runoff. We first determine what we deem as a cold temperature, a moderate temperature, and so on until we have 4 options (cold, warm, moderate, or the AC is off and windows are open). For us, we need 3 out of the 5 of us to agree upon a temperature for it to pass. Cold passes under a simple majority after a runoff. However, upon reviewing the different types of voting methods that we learned in class, I wondered if Borda would produce a different result. Borda picks the Condorcet winner more often than simple majority with runoff so I thought that the Borda method might be a better (where better here simply means: picks the Condorcet winner more often) method for determining the AC than the simple majority with runoff.

To demonstrate why the Borda method might be better I laid out my friends' preferences in the following table:

	Sam	Nathan	Zachary	Sami	Alex
4	cold	warm	Off	cold	off
3	off	cold	moderate	off	moderate
2	moderate	off	warm	moderate	cold
1	warm	moderate	cold	warm	warm

Cold= 4(C) + 4(C) +3(C)+2(C) +1(C) =14

Off= 4(O)+4 (O) + 3(O) + 3 (O) + 2(O) + = 16

Moderate= 3(M)+3(M) + 2(M) +2 (M) + 1(M) =11

Warm=  4(W) +2(W) + 1 (M) + 1 (M) +1 (M) = 9

In a simple majority after a runoff “Cold” wins. But with the Borda method “off” wins. However, in a pairwise election where it is “Cold vs Off’, “Cold” wins. In this situation it seems that the Condorcet winner is “Cold” yet Borda chooses “Off”. In this unique example simple majority with runoff chooses the Condorcet winner yet Borda does not, even though Borda on average chooses the Condorcet winner more than the simple majority with runoff.

Baptist and the Bootlegger

Marc Andreessen was a guest on the Lex Fridman podcast a few months ago. Among the many interesting topics they discussed was a conversation about the Baptist and Bootlegger theory. In short, this theory illustrates how disparate groups may unexpectedly align to support and/or lobby for the same regulations or policies. The most classic example is how the Baptists and Bootleggers aligned in their interests of banning alcohol during the Prohibition era. The Baptists for moral reason and Bootleggers to increase their alcohol sales.

Recently, Sam Altman appeared in front of congress begging for regulations against open source AI. These big AI companies are asking the government to regulate the development of AI to a few "trusted" tech companies. 

Marc then compares this theory to Sam Altman, and the leaders of other Big Tech companies, begging for regulations against open source AI, saying "Economists will tell you it's the same pattern every time ... this is what's happened dozens and dozens of times throughout the last 100 years". 

It is clear that Andreessen is referring to these big AI companies rent seeking and riding off the backs of the general public's fear of the possibilities of AI, to get regulations passed that create barriers of entry into the AI field. Big Tech companies are known for being extremely slow to change and adapt, which is why new successful tech startups are constantly emerging. These AI regulations would efficiently make it impossible for new startups to enter the space and compete against these tech giants. 

Aint No Rest for the Wicked

    Saturday night, the night of the historical UVA upset over UNC, I ordered a couple of pizzas to eat with my friends. When I went to pick up the pizza from the delivery women at our front door, I greeted her with a pleasant, "Hi, how are you doing tonight?". This prompted her to begin telling me all about her week, which she complained about having her hours cut at a different job and having to pick up another job delivering pizzas. I expressed sympathy as I know no one wants to be delivering pizzas at 10 pm on a Saturday night, but she responded with "It's ok, it's free money". As I closed the door, the Coppock voice inside my head screamed, "There aint nothing in this life for free!" (shoutout Cage the Elephant). 

    For this delivery women, the money earned was not free. The cost of the money she made is the opportunity cost of what else she could have been doing with that time. Now, for some people, the opportunity cost of their time would be too high to pick up a lower paying job like delivering pizzas. This could be because they have a higher paying/valued opportunity, or it could be their marginal utility per extra dollar is low enough that leisure time is more valuable than an extra dollar would be. Even for this delivery women, she may have higher valued activities she could be doing (activities that bring her utility but not necessarily money); but, in her precarious position, any extra dollar is extremely valuable for her and her family. I was able to restrain myself from telling her she was wrong when she said the money is free, but in the future it is going to be difficult to subdue my inner economist.  

Coase's Theorem...Apply to Roommates

 This week I was slammed with work, and at some point had to find time to fit in a 3 hour take-home midterm for my memory distortions class. The only time that I could carve out 3 consecutive hours to take this test before the deadline was unfortunately Thursday night from 7-10 pm. My roommates were out for most of the time that I was taking the test, but they started coming back in with our other friends around 9, right when I was starting to feel the time crunch as I started my essay question on retrieval practice. For them, it was a regular Thursday night, and they were having fun in the living room, which is right next to my room, meaning I could hear everything and kept getting distracted.

I thought of the Coase theorem and his two key assumptions about the nonexistence of transaction costs and clearly defined property rights. I considered striking a deal with them, in which they compensated me for every minute they spent talking in the living room and disrupting the silence. I realized, however, that we did not have clearly defined property rights. We all live in the apartment and pay for equal ownership of areas such as the living room, and I could not be sure if they would have to pay me, or if I would be stuck paying them for some peace and quiet. I only had an hour left to finish my test at this point, so instead of spending my time working out the correct Coasian solution, I just opened my door and politely asked them to be a little quieter.

Please Fix My Broken Dorm Light

    We have a system for reporting maintenance requests in the UVA dorms. If a particular shower is clogged or a door alarm is wonky or a light is broken, you can simply file a request and maintenance will take care of it within two days. It is an impressive system and an advantage over living off-grounds where you are lucky if the landlord even responds to your email asking for repairs. But such a system is akin to the example in Chapter 6 in The Calculus of Consent where “any individual in the municipal group under consideration may secure road or street repairs or improvements when he requests it from the city authorities”.  

    In such a system, even a remote road traveled by only a few people would lead to repairs whose benefits are not shared evenly. Since only one individual is needed to take collection action to request repair and a student is rarely charged for the service, the expected external costs are high. There is an over investment because repairs for the smallest issues are filed, and the facilities staff size is likely larger than it would need to be. We likely see the external cost of such a system in the form of higher housing costs than would be if these expenses were charged to the individual rather than collectively. Nonetheless as someone with free housing as an RA, I am quite content with the current system.

An Indecisive (and costly) HOA

 When we lived in Nashville, my dad put his handiness to work and built my sibling and me a beautiful playhouse (not one of these pre-bought sets). Once he finished, he unveiled our new house after school – and we quickly got the attention of the kids on the block…

…and the HOA. My dad had painted the trim of the wooden house red, thinking it matched the neighborhood homes. The HOA did not agree. A few days later, they dropped off a letter telling him to repaint the trim a less bright color. My dad begrudgingly compiled, painting the trim a pale blue. Yet again, the HOA sent a letter telling him to repaint the trim, this time to a neutral color – resulting in our white playhouse having a mud-brown trim. 

The fact my dad had to repaint the playhouse multiple times suggests that the Na for the HOA may have been low. Having to repaint the playhouse TWICE increased the cost of the decision (Ci) for my dad – and the decision-making costs (Di) of trying to negotiate with the HOA – some of whom wanted the playhouse to be out of sight from the street. If the HOA had used a simple majority, my dad would not have had to make so many runs to Home Depot (although I think he liked painting so
much he may not have minded too much).

Coase in the Cul-de-sac

The street my family used to live on has a cul de sac at the end of it. Recently, I heard that a family on this street, the Gondi’s, were going to sell their house at the end of the cul de sac, and this was a big deal! It is the most expensive house in the entire neighborhood not only because the two physicians who lived there invested a lot of money into it, but more importantly because the Gondis own an empty lot next to the house which they never sold. This immaculate housing lot is filled with dense green trees that create a positive externality of a tranquil viewing for other neighbors. Additionally, it makes the club good of the cul-de-sac less rivalrous. However, with the news that the Gondis are selling their house comes the fear that this empty lot will also be sold. 

To make up (potentially inflated) numbers to illustrate this, let’s say the value of the house combined with the empty lot is $1.2 million (house: 1 million + empty lot: 200k). The new homeowner may decide to buy the house and then sell the adjacent empty lot to someone else to minimize their costs. When a new house is being built on the empty lot it will create negative externalities such as loud construction equipment, red clay tire tracks, and porta-johns to take the place of green trees. Therefore, given sufficiently low transactional costs of private bargaining, a potential Coasian solution could take place. The neighbors on the street could decide to pay a collected amount to the new home owner to keep the empty lot unscathed. However, if the cost to contribute towards the green lot is greater than the benefit of the scenic view then people may just have to get used to CAT excavators in the cul de sac or pack up and move!

Everyday Failure of Simple Majority Rule

Recently, I polled my roommate group chat on whether or not we should adopt a Russian Tortoise. The result: two resounding “yes” responses and two resounding “no” responses. In a situation where we were all 5 taking collective action via simple majority rule, my third “yes” would have broken the tie, and we would now have a tortoise named Clyde! 

But, imagine that I am a Downsian political party, trying to maximize votes via policy to win office and power— or, to win inter-roommate popularity. I face a conundrum in trying to craft my party "policy," given that there is no median to in my current four person electorate, and no winner under simple majority. If I was competing with some other, external “party” to be the most popular roommate via simple majority rule, and we were trying to appease this specific electorate of four via our tortoise policies, there would be no median vote for us to tailor our policy to and no deciding winner under simple majority rule. Even without parties, in a simple situation with four people taking collective action, majority rule fails to produce a winner in the 2-2 case.

This may seem both trivial and obvious, but this phenomenon could scale up to create serious political issues in the real world! Admittedly, this problem becomes less pronounced in a national election with millions of voters, given that you are probabilistically less-likely to have a race that comes down to a single, median vote. However, even with a massive, 10-trillion-person-sized electorate, the outcome could be 5,000,000,000 votes for “tortoise” and 5,000,000,000 votes for “no tortoise." In this case, neither a "pro-tortoise" or an "anti-tortoise" party could win. It could becomes necessary to scrap the simple majority tenet in order to resort to an alternative decision-making rule... might I propose a new, "tortoise and the Hare" method? Regardless, further economic research should compare the external costs generated by a tortoise litter box and the treatment of tortoises as a public good.

Bankruptcies and their Infinite Individual Equilibria

I am responding to a critique of my last blog post's characterization of a point (the final landing point) on the x1-x2 plane as an equilibrium.  I still posit that is an equilibrium, and I will build out the game that is bankruptcy, restructuring, and distressed debt, and briefly introduce its game theory to show not only that this past example reached an equilibrium, but furthermore that every bankruptcy ends in an equilibrium.  After all, that's why they exist.

The players of the game are investors, employees, and other third party players.  All players fight on a multidimensional plane to maximize internal rate of return.  US Chapter 11 bankruptcy and the broader legal infrastructure function to meet two main goals of stability in the US credit markets and the turnaround of failing corporations.  They collectively are the master agenda-setter that exists to expediently "right-size" the balance sheet of the debtor and reach a stable equilibrium.  

Mr. Coppock has described an equilibrium as an outcome where no player is incentivized to change behavior.  The players in this game consider their ex-ante expected probabilities of outcomes (often regarding who gets to vote) and find a balanced solution that fits their respective risk preferences.  The rounds of strategic moves by players influence and clarify the probabilities of these outcomes.  The players play the game until an agreement is found at which point the game is played no more: there is no incentive for the players to make any more moves, and an equilibrium is found.  

Friday's "Fun" Fiasco

Last night, I came home from teaching a spin class only to find my roommates arguing about who each of them was going to bring to their sorority date function this Friday night. My friend Charlotte was particularly struggling. She had three options: bring a roommate, a set-up, or one of our guy friends. In a logical (but somewhat superficial way), I suggested she rank her potential dates based on how much fun she thought she would have with each of them. But before I suggested this, our roommates who would also be in attendance at the event cast their ranked votes on who Charlotte should bring (1 being first choice and 3 being last choice): 

                    Roommate    Set-Up    Guy Friend

Sadie                   1                2                3

Cait                     2                3                1

Annika                1                3                2

Grace                  3                1                2

Bella                   2                1                3

Based on what we've discussed in class, I suggested Charlotte use the Borda Method to determine the group's preferences (apparently, she does not care in the slightest herself the outcome...). She assigned a first place ranking 3 points, a second place ranking 2 points, and a third place ranking 1 point. If we look at everyone's totaled preferences:

Roommate: 3 + 2 + 3 + 1 + 2 = 11

Set-Up: 2 + 1 + 1 + 3 + 3 = 10

Guy Friend: 1 + 3 + 2 + 2 + 1 = 9

The Condorcet winner as determined by Borda's Method in this case would be Charlotte bringing one of our lovely roommates...needless to say I am excited to attend the date function on Friday!

"CURSE YOU PERRY THE PLATYPUS!!!!!"

 

        After hearing that Phineas and Ferb is in production for a fifth season, I began binging old episodes so I could remember the storylines. This got me wondering about Dr. Doofenshmirtz, and how he continually builds new evil inventions only for Perry the Platypus to come ruin his ingenious plans. Let me assume, as all great Economists do, that each time Dr. Doofenshmirtz remembers Perry exists and will come to stop his plans (a reasonable assumption I assert given the fact he always builds a trap). Then why would Dr. Doofenshmirtz continue to build evil inventions, given his probability of success is near-zero (and is more likely to be struck by a dog)? 

        I thought about the following expression we learned in class when trying to rationalize voting: 

                                                                    pB + [D] - C > 0

        While presented in the context of voting, I felt this concept can be used to analyze Dr. Doofenshmirtz's behavior. We can suppose that in each episode he "votes" to build his evil inventions, with p ranging from 0-1 according to how likely his invention will have an effect. Since Perry the Platypus constantly foils his plans, his p is near-zero which means he will not gain the Benefit "B" of his plan working. This means there must be some additional utility "D" which is greater than his economic costs "C" driving him to continuously vote to build an evil invention. Perhaps this utility comes from a sense of evil duty to be evil to his fellow Tri-State citizens, or perhaps he gains satisfaction from the scientific practice of building a machine. Maybe, the truth all this time, is that Dr. Doofenshmirtz loves Perry and votes to build these machines so that he can continue spending time with him.

The Marginal Benefit of Writing A Short Title Does Not Exceed The Marginal Cost Of Thinking of Said Title.

 We have discussed applying economic behavior - namely, the MB>MC condition - to voting in elections. In Johnson's simple yet effective model, the expected marginal benefit of casting one's vote in a two-option election is E(U) = P(the vote is decisive) * [(Net utility if option 1 succeeds) - (Net utility if option 2 succeeds)]. But does this equation hold in edge cases? Consider two examples:

1. In my history class, the professor had two students act out a debate of a historical controversy. The rest of the class was then able to vote on the winner with the vote totals appearing on the projector. I had a slight preference as to the winner, but was too lazy to get out my phone and cast my vote. That was, until I saw that the vote was tied! Suddenly, P(decisive) was 1 for my vote, and with a much higher E(U) I chose the winner of the debate.

2. I enjoy cooking with my girlfriend. But cooking requires choosing what to cook, so it is not uncommon for her to summon two options and ask me to select from them. If I desire one meal over another, I will vote accordingly, but what if I value each choice equally? I am forced to say that I have no preference and thus will not choose. This is not an admission that I do not like the options - I may like them both very much! But if I expect their utility to be equal, the two will cancel, and I have no reason to cast my vote.

Once in a blue moon, p=1.

        Last week, in my Intro Machine Learning class, we were asked to vote on whether raising the threshold of a K-Nearest Neighbors regression model would overfit or underfit the model. It had already been a long day, and my group was not feeling particularly confident about either answer. Instead of searching through our notes and Google to find the answer to this question, we decided to be rationally ignorant and wait until the rest of the room had placed their tally under one of the two options and just put our tally, or cast our vote, on whichever option was already winning. The marginal cost of looking finding the answer on our own was far higher than the marginal benefit of being the first group to place their tally under the right answer.

The rest of the groups took turns marking their tallies on the board and, low and behold, the votes were perfectly even. I thought to myself, “Oh no. Our p is 1”. My group all looked at each other with sheepish stares. Not only did we not know the answer to the question on the board, but we also were suddenly the deciding factor of the entire class’s consensus. In fear of placing our tally under the wrong answer in front of the entire class, we sunk into our seats and waited for further conversation from the professor. This made me wonder how often voting abstention in the US is in fact a result of rational ignorance. If we were confident in our answer, our p being 1 would've been an easy opportunity to look super smart in front of the whole class. Does the fear of making the wrong choice prevent people from voting in the same way that the prediction that your p is 0 does?

Picking the Best Spot for your CIO Table

Everyday, I see CIOs tabling but it wasn’t until after class on Thursday that I questioned their positioning. CIO tables (orange dots) advertise membership and events along the sidewalk between Garrett Hall and Randall Hall (the blue stretch). Often, these tables crowd the top left corner of the South Lawn. Thinking about the example of the ice cream carts in class and how the two vendors would end up in the middle of the beach, I was curious about how CIOs choose their table location. Based on what we learned about multiparty systems and how parties in that system will strive to distinguish themselves, I would imagine that CIOs would want to spread themselves out more than they currently do

The 700+ CIOs at UVA must compete for attention. Two factors are at play. First, ceteris paribus, pedestrians are more likely to engage with tables they walk by first. When students are in a rush, they have limited attention ”currency” to spend and don’t have time to engage with every table. This means that CIOs will target the areas with not only the highest pedestrian density but also the ones where they are likely the first table a student encounters. Intersections are prime spots to increase that chance. Still, we should expect some groups to position themselves in front of Garrett Hall with its influx of students. That brings me to the second factor: food trucks. Food trucks and the crowd of students waiting for their meals add a negative externality in the form of noise, which makes it challenging to grab a student’s attention. Therefore, CIOs are pushed towards the more quiet end of this stretch.

Perhaps every CIO is thinking about their table positioning in this way. Or, more likely, CIOs are simply copying what every CIO has done before them.