Re: Ticket Master
It sounds like a pretty good means of deterring rent seeking. First, now that waiting for 12 hours does not guarantee getting first shot at tickets, the incentive to wait 12 hours is reduced. Second, I would bet that the majority of those waiting in line for 12 hours are agents of scalpers. Random drawings limit their ability to get the choicest seats and resell them. Not that this is necessarily good or efficient, but it does minimize rent seeking. Mark Steckbeck On 1/24/01 8:47 PM, "Daljit Dhadwal" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At a recent concert for U2, Ticket Master limited each person in line to purchase up to 5 tickets. The strange part (I thought) was the line was randomized. About an hour before the tickets went on sale people were given random numbers that would determine when they could purchase tickets. So, even if you were first in line and you got number 500, you'd have to wait. What purpose does this serve? Daljit Dhadwal
Re: Homelessness message dated
I believe that what most of these "studies" refer to is based on revealed preferences: Given that jobs and homes are available that these people could choose in order to move off of the streets, the fact that they still live on the streets demonstrates their revealed preference for homelessness rather than work and lodging. I do recall some past crude studies whereby homeless people were taken off of the street and given housing, food, etc., at no money cost to them. As part of this experiment, residents were required to take care of the house, themselves, etc., for which they refused. Within a very short period of time, most of them left to be back on the street. I also remember an anecdotal story about a homeless person who was being fed daily by a local restaurant owner. One day the restaurateur requested that the homeless person sweep the front sidewalk in exchange for his meal at which point the homeless person exacted revenge by vandalizing the restaurant. The "studies," and this anecdote, are both crude and unscientific, accounting for mental illness is certainly a factor that complicates any study claiming homelessness is voluntary. I do, however, disagree with Mr. Dickens historical accounts. Indeed, in the early 80s a federal judge barred St. Elizabeths Hospital--a mental institute in Washington, DC, where, by the way, John Hinckley is detained--from holding mental patients against their will. St. Es, as did other mental institutes nationwide, immediately released any patient wishing to leave. The media, artists, and other advocates against Reagan immediately portrayed the rise in homelessness as being caused by Reagan's policies and proof of his insensitivity towards poor people. If homelessness is on the rise, which would not be surprising, you certainly never hear it being attributed to Clinton's policies or proof of his insensitivity to poor people. What has not been commented on is that all localities, save Houston, have zoning restrictions barring multi-family sharing of single-family residences (i.e., there can be no more than two or three people with different last names living in the same single-family home -- the wording from a North Carolina community zoning regulation). This prohibits for example, six people pooling their resources to live in a two or three bedroom residence. Mark Steckbeck On 1/25/01 7:34 AM, "William Dickens" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If someone knows of a study showing that homelessness is voluntary I would love to see it. I've never heard that claimed before for the obvious reason -- how would you ask about it? I can't imagine that a majority of homeless would say that they would prefer living on the street no matter what their resources were or if free safe shelter were available. I do know that many homeless people will only go to a shelter when it is necessary due to the weather (and sometimes not then) because shelters are evidently dangerous places where things get stolen and people get knifed. I can imagine this being the source of the notion that homeless choose homelessness. A few years ago I read the literature on homelessness. As I remember: 1) Mental illness is a problem for only about 1/4th of the homeless. A majority did have drug or alcohol problems. 2) Deinstitutionalization has very little to do with the rise in homelessness as most deinstitutionalization took place a decade before the rise in homelessness (which those of us who lived through it will recall as taking place in the early 1980s). 3) The rise in homelessness correlated with a large cut back in support for low income housing, but the mechanism by which this would have produced the rise in homelessness is hard to describe since the people who were showing up as homeless were not the type who would have been in public housing and public housing never covered more than a fourth of those eligible anyway. 4) Four things which are thought to have contributed to the rise in homelessness: a) Building codes that made SRO hotels untenable, b) a steep rise in housing costs due mainly to ! a steep rise in real interest rates and a change in the tax treatment of rental housing, c) the elimination or sharp reduction of state general assistance programs, d) the 1980/82 recessions. -- Bill Dickens William T. Dickens The Brookings Institution 1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20036 Phone: (202) 797-6113 FAX: (202) 797-6181 E-MAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED] AOL IM: wtdickens
Homelessness
An interesting news story affirming my contention that zoning restrictions contribute to homelessness is the push by a few northern Virginia state lawmakers to enact a state law outlawing residents from sleeping in any rooms of their homes other than their bedrooms. Their reasoning is that poor people (read: immigrants) tend to rent single-family homes and then pack them with roommates using every room, including the kitchen, as bedrooms. Mark Steckbeck
Austrians and markets
A colleague who had run and managed businesses in a previous life recently asked me to name a management strategy based on Austrian theory. There are numerous possible answers such as spontaneous order and all but, after considering that another colleague who happens to be both a musician and an avid Austrian once told me that the market for music was wholly inept and inefficient in that it did not see the best musicians rise to the top--namely I suppose, him--as well as the recent post by Dan Klein pertaining to changing the name of the school (let's put the old wine in new wineskins), the following struck me: If Austrians believe in the sanctity of the market and market outcomes, how do they view the fact that the market is repudiating Austrian theory and methodology? Yes, a lot of Austrian ideas have been accepted and incorporated into orthodox economic theory, but as a whole is the Austrian school of thought and theory losing steam and support? If so, has the market weeded out the least desirable (or efficient) product? Mark Steckbeck Hillsdale College
RE: Austrians and markets
Actually, I am not making (or trying to make) an argument, I am simply interested in responses from this list given the range of ideologies. I agree wholly with previous statements made on this list that Austrian economics has made large contributions to economics. My question deals more with one I posed to Don Lavoie last year: Is there a need to differentiate Austrian economics from the rest of the profession? I understand and accept Pete Boettke's arguments, most notable of them pertaining to the sins of omission and commission. But is there a viable market niche for Austrian economics? This might simply be deemed an empirical question, so I ask in large part because there are really only two schools that specialize in Austrian economics for undergraduates and only one for graduates, at least that I am aware of. (By specialize I mean that they promote it as one of their market niches, not just that they offer a course or it is promoted as part of a larger class.) Does this limit the choices of these students when they graduate, either as undergrads or grads? In a similar vein, there is a market niche for the Libertarian party, but obviously it is not a viable party in that it can never sell itself well enough to garner more than one percent of the vote, notwithstanding that I fully believe their tenets. Does maintaining their separatism help or does it hinder good ideas from being incorporated into mainstream thought? Mark Steckbeck On 11/26/01 10:19 AM, Peter Boettke [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Mark, I am surprised you would be making this argument ... do you believe that the market for legislation is efficient because it exists? Whatever is, isn't necessarily efficient. The market for ideas in economics is a distorted market. Fads and fashions come and go all the time. Science is not like a market because it lacks certain institutions which are the backdrop against which markets operate. Nobody ever said individuals pursuing their self interest, under whatever conceivable set of institutions you could imagine, would generate a desirable social order. The invisible hand postulate is specified within an institutional environment. Of course, some really fascinating research has been done on the application of invisible hand processes to the framework itself. I have a paper with Bill Butos which examines the nature of science and its relationship to entrepreneurship and if anyone is interested just send me an email and I will send you the attached file. Pete Boettke -- End of Forwarded Message
Re: Organ donation
Mark, I assume you mean that individuals who sell their organs in good health will then change their behavior to harm the organs. First, I don't think this would happen. As an idividual you still bear the costs of damaging your organs. Also, this can be solved with yearly checkups with exit clauses in contracts that pay out in installments. This also makes the organs of religious groups that disallow drinking and smoking more valuable. Their commitment to good health is more credible than others. This, of course, increases transaction cost, but certainly not enough to exceed the gains from trade. But I still believe you would have an adverse selection problem--those from whom you would least like to have a donated organ would be the most likely to sell theirs. Religious groups, of all sectors, would seem to have the greatest restrictions against selling their organs. I am not convinced, however, that any of these would thwart a viable market--insurance companies would certainly find it in their interest to overcome such problems. Second, wealth and health are positively ocrrelated. The increased wealth from pre-sale of organs will likely increase the health of the donor and organs. We're talking probably a few thousand dollars, conceivably $50k or so (competition would drive it down fast), not enough to make life-altering changes in habits. Maybe it would improve the life of any children, but again, only marginally. On Jason's point of the difficulty of pricing organs due to risk. I don't think this is a problem. Insurance companies make such calculations all the time to assign premiums. Agreed. My biggest con against a market for organs that I bring up in class as I discuss this is that you create the incentive for people to kill others whose bodies are more valuable dead than alive. In the U.S. we could handle much like life insurance, if you are in any way involved in the killing of someone to whom you are a beneficiary, you not only go to jail, you cannot collect. This cannot extend outside of our borders however. The Chinese, for example, are known to kill political prisoners and then sell their organs. JC
Re: taxi transitional gains trap
Huge coordination problems, aren't there? -- Mark Steckbeck Assistant Professor of Economics Hillsdale College Economics Department 33 E. College Street Hillsdale, MI 49242 (517) 437-7341 [EMAIL PROTECTED] On 7/26/02 2:50 PM, Bryan Caplan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is there really a transitional gains trap? If a majority of NYers seriously wanted free entry in cabs, wouldn't it happen regardless of the opinions of cab companies?
