> > "Providing this free service [public restroom] for > > their customers only serves to reduce businesses' > > profits, or else the cost is passed on > > indiscriminately to all their customers." > > Serious question: If the firm is already charging a > profit maximizing price, how can it pass the cost of > bathroom maintenance to customers as a whole?
No doubt they can't, except for the (small) marginal cost of having another person use the restroom (averaged over all customers, some of whom don't). I think we are leaving something out here. Many people, or at least many Americans, seem highly offended at the notion of having to pay to use a toilet. Hence, the existence of groups like the "Committee to Eliminate Pay Toilets In America." (Or as John Perich put it, "Committee to Eliminate Pay Toilets In Communities" (C.E.P.T.I.C.). I love it!) This is another way of saying such people have a strong disutility associated with paying for the toilet, to the point that they are willing to pay a little extra for the goods sold at the establishment. It's quite possible that if, say, McDonald's started charging for toilets, people would be willing to pay higher prices for food at Burger King to avoid the indignity (disutility) of having to pay for the toilet. If people are suffifiently offended, they might even avoid patronizing McDonald's on occasions when they only want food and don't need to use the toilet (i.e., boycott the company that offends them). This phenomenon is not particular to toilets -- people will sometimes pay more for a product made in a country they like (or not made in a country they don't like) or avoid patronising a company which makes political contributions they disagree with or does something they think is immoral but which is unrelated to the transactions at hand. Examples: "Buy American" campaigns in the USA; the boycott of Domino's pizza by feminists (the owner is pro-life); the boycott of California table grapes by various groups for 20+ years. The list goes on and on. There has been some work on whether or not "boycotts" actually change corporate behavior; the absense of pay toilets might be an example where the market is telling firms to abide by the sensibilities of the public. The presence of pay toilets in other countries may just indicate that other "publics" have other sensibilities. --Robert Book [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ First Law of Work: If you can't get your work done in the first 24 hours, work nights. ------------------------------------------------------------------------
