What you say sounds right, Alex; I'm just thinking of a large-N problem
where the selfishly optimal strategy is 0 contribution. For air
pollution, that sounds pretty reasonable, doesn't it?
--
Prof. Bryan Caplan
Department of Economics George M
Bryan,
You don't need altruism to get a crowding-out effect if people are
initially contributing towards the public good as part of a Nash
equilibrium. In the Nash Equilibrium people contribute to the public
good but less than the optimum amount (the case where people contribute
nothing is t
do you know where i could data about the air pollution indices of certain
cities in Asia?
If "low-pollution" means "good milage", that could cause lower gasoline consumption
for the "good milage" people, lowering gas prices which could give incentive for
everyone to drive more, or for the other 50% to buy "even worse milage" cars.
Nils
- Original Message -
From: "Bryan Cap
Well don't you forget that cars are built by companies that try to
please consumers? If 50% of all people voluntarily bought low-pollutions
cars then there is a good probability that it would be more difficult to
find high-pollutions cars. The good product would, at least gradually,
chase the bad
You wrote:
Suppose 50% of all people voluntarily buy low-pollution cars to "do
their part" for clean air.
Can anyone think up plausible mechanisms whereby their choice would
induce other people to pollute *more*?
No, I think the opposite would be the case. We are probably more in the
domain o
