Pervasive Externalities

Elizabeth Anderson posts a short essay in which she writes:

Externalities, asymmetrical information, and other collective action problems are even more pervasive in economic life.  Countless ways of conducting business reap gains for some while imposing unjust costs on others. Create a cartel. Stuff rat feces in sausages. Engage in insider trading. Dump toxic waste in rivers. Market useless medicines. Withdraw renewable resources at unsustainable rates. Stuff insurance contracts with obscure loopholes, collect premiums from customers, and then deny their claims. Fill corporate boards with cronies who reward top managers with huge bonuses even when they fail to meet contracted performance requirements. Rig the terms of a complex loan to trap financially unsophisticated borrowers into spiraling debt and fees. Get rating agencies to certify worthless assets as AAA. Use leverage to reap profits from self-generated asset bubbles, sending the global economy into financial collapse when they burst. Without extensive regulation, markets happily accommodate such negative-value-added business plans. Tomasi sometimes acknowledges this fact. But he puts a heavy thumb on the scales against regulation by describing economic activity in general in terms of “self-authorship” and “economic liberty.” Such descriptions cut no normative ice with respect to destructive or predatory business plans. Nor should judges, who lack the expertise to assess economic regulations designed to stop such abuses, use such exalted abstractions to strike them down."

The point of the essay is to offer a critical review of Tomasi's Free Market Fairness.  I've not read Tomasi's book yet, so my comment here is about the conceptual view in this quotation.


It seems to me the first two sentences in the quoted paragraph are making use of the normative framework of economic efficiency.  Specifically, reference is made to what sounds like a negative externality because it is asserted that there are ways of conducting business that are thought to impose unjust costs on others.  While this sounds like a negative externality, and thus a market failure, it seems well off the efficiency mark to me.

I will admit that many economists have used the phrase "imposed costs" when discussing negative externalities, and this has been done for quite a long time now.  I think there have also been not just a few economists who have told negative externality stories by talking about "the victims" of imposed external costs.  However, such ideas are not really expressing the conceptual conclusions that fall out of negative externality models.

The problem of negative externality market failure is not that businesses, or consumers, "impose" costs on others.  The efficiency problem is not that there are victims of the actions of businesses, or the actions of consumers.  The problem, pure and simple, is that the allocation of resources that characterizes the market equilibrium (for a perfectly competitive market) is inefficient when a negative externality is associated with the market.

From the normative point of view of efficiency there are no victims and no one is at fault.  When there is a negative externality the market simply fails to achieve an efficient allocation of resources when a market equilibrium is reached.  If this doesn't seem to be correct to you, then consider the way in which the negative externality market failure can be corrected.  The correction is of course a Pigovian tax, or an excise tax, which is equal to the marginal external cost at the efficient quantity of output.  The idea is quite simply that a market fails to allocate resources efficiently when there is a cost which is "externalized," or that is to say, a cost which is not internalized in the choices taken by buyers and sellers.  To fix the efficiency problem the troublesome costs have to be internalized through the use of a Pigovian tax.  No one needs to be punished, no personal fault needs to be assessed, and no one needs to be compensated on efficiency grounds.  The correction involves a bit of "tweaking" to "fix" the market by internalizing the marginal external costs.

Note also that since on efficiency grounds there are no victims and there are no persons to fault for efficiency transgressions, there seems to me no meaningful concept of "unjust" external costs.  There may well be "unjust" costs associated with the economic activities of people that lead to air pollution, but such costs have to be called "unjust" on normative grounds other than economic efficiency.

Moving on the what comes next in the quoted paragraph, consider whether any of the actions in the list of suspect business practices and plans are associated with negative externalities.

The creation of a cartel is not a negative externality.  It would result in a monopoly market failure.  Efforts to create a cartel are associated with "collective action problems," but not from the social point of view, only from the point of view of the "collective" which in this case is the cartel.  As Mancur Olson explained in The Logic of Collective Action we should expect very few cartels to exist without the force of government helping to hold the cartel together.  Of course this also means that if we think we see a cartel within the United States it is probably the result of government policy.

Stuffing rat feces in sausages is not a negative externality because there is no third party, only a buyer and a seller.  It is certainly a bad business practice, but it does not result in an inefficient allocation of resources.  I can suggest at this point a pretty handy way to decide if there is a negative externality involved.  Assume there is a negative externality and consider the Pigovian tax that would be needed to correct the inefficiency.  In the case of rat feces stuffed in sausages, we would ask government to impose a Pigovian tax so we achieved the efficient amount of rat feces in sausages (don't forget now that the efficient quantity of rat feces is zero only in very special cases).  If the policy response seems silly, like it does in this case, then there probably is no negative externality!

Dumping either toxic or nontoxic waste in a river is probably the classic illustration of a negative externality.  So, here is the case that perfectly fits my explanation above that the efficiency problem is not associated with victims or with the unjust imposition of costs.  The problem here is that without a means of internalizing the marginal external cost the equilibrium allocation will have an inefficiently large amount of toxic or nontoxic waste in the river.  Perhaps government compulsion can get the efficient amount of waste in this case, perhaps not.

I shouldn't think that insider trading was a negative externality efficiency problem.  Just that word "insider" suggests otherwise, don't you think?  Don't misunderstand, I can be convinced that insider trading is something of a policy concern, but not on the grounds of negative externality, or even on the grounds of efficiency concerns associated with asymmetric information.  Insider trading seems to me to be associated with the specific rules and regulations governments have created over many years because of the earlier government action to allow the formation of corporations with limited liability.  And, the policy concerns may well be efficiency concerns, but I'm inclined to say these efficiency concerns are a classic illustration of government (efficiency) failure.

Well, I could go on with the rest of the list, but I'm getting a bit tired of this exercise, and I suspect you are as well.  I just thought I could write a few things down that would help my future students understand what the concepts of efficiency, market failure, and negative externalities really mean.  Plus, if former students take the time to read this, I'm hoping they will be reminded of why I've urged them to: JUST SAY NO TO EXTERNALITY ABUSE!

McCloskey on Markets & Government

Deirdre McCloskey has posted a wonderful short essay over at Bleeding Heart Libertarians.  You should read the entire piece because there is far too much good stuff in the essay for me to make not of here.  However, I will make note of her summary of the master narrative of High Liberalism:

The story is, in a few brief mottos to stand for a rich intellectual tradition since the 1880s: Modern life is complicated, and so we need government to regulate. Government can do so well, and will not be regularly corrupted. Since markets fail very frequently the government should step in to fix them. Without a big government we cannot do certain noble things (Hoover Dam, the Interstates, NASA). Antitrust works. Businesses will exploit workers if government regulation and union contracts do not intervene. Unions got us the 40-hour week. Poor people are better off chiefly because of big government and unions. The USA was never laissez faire. Internal improvements were a good idea, and governmental from the start. Profit is not a good guide. Consumers are usually misled. Advertising is bad.

McCloskey finds this narrative to be factually mistaken.  I agree.  So, now, click through to the essay and read her defense of the conclusion that this narrative is mistaken.

You should also read the interchange of comments to follow the essay.  She writes some remarkable responses there are well.  Here is one response I especially like:

Dear Jason, Your sober and sophisticated words are correct. As I said, some state action is desirable. I lived in England in 1959 as the laws against soft-coal burning were taking effect, and there is no entity but a state that could have achieved such a good compulsion. But good compulsions are much rarer factually than people think who talk of "services" or congresspeople who talk of "programs," and that's most people these days. It is why I lean against. It is wrong to put the issue at the "cosmic" level. That after all was my point: let us get down to the facts, if facts is what we are assuming. But this much is true in the cosmos: states have monopolies of violence, and use them; markets and gifts do not. Of the three realms of state, market, and grace, I want every time, acknowledging in the style of Ronald Coase that we can't do this analysis on a blackboard, to see the actual evidence that violence is necessary before I sign on to using it to achieve "actual consequences." I have a bias towards markets and what Boulding called the grants economy ("grace" I am calling it here, theologically speaking: caring for children, loving your friends, feeding the poor), and I have a bias against monopolies of violence, so easily tempted to be used to enrich ones friends and tyrannize over the poor and weak. I repeat what I said to Brian: I do not understand the reflex to defend the massive modern state. As Hayek said, the more complicated the society the worse is the argument for top-down Reason as the way to organize it. Sincerely, Deirdre McCloskey

I tell my students all the time that when thinking about government and public policy it is important to recognize that social interactions involve either voluntary behavior and cooperation or they involve force and compulsion.  Government operates in the realm of force and violence, while the market process is what emerges from the realm of voluntary human interactions.  I suggest that the way McCloskey has described the use of government force in this comment is the best way to think about government and policy issues.  I too have a bias against the use of violence and a bias toward the use of markets and grace.  I suggest that voluntary social interactions should be the normative default position, and to move away from the default position should require some good evidence that a proposed act of government violence is necessary.

Prices

Ludwig von Mises:

He who believes the formation of prices to be arbitrary easily arrives at the demand that they should be fixed by external regulation. [A Critique of Interventionism, p. 97]

Chevy Volt

TOM GANTERT:

"Each Chevy Volt sold thus far may have as much as $250,000 in state and federal dollars in incentives behind it – a total of $3 billion altogether, according to an analysis by James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

[. . . .]

GM has estimated they’ve sold 6,000 Volts so far. That would mean each of the 6,000 Volts sold would be subsidized between $50,000 and $250,000, depending on how many government subsidy milestones are realized.

[. . . .]

“It just goes to show there are certain folks that will spend anything to get their vision of what people should do,” said State Representative Tom McMillin, R-Rochester Hills. “It’s a glaring example of the failure of central planning trying to force citizens to purchase something they may not want. … They should let the free market make those decisions.”"

I hope you remember Magnum P.I., because the only thought that comes to mind is Higgins saying: "OH MY GOD!!!"

UPDATE January 5, 2012

All Volts sold in the U.S. have been "RECALLED" in order to fix fire hazard.

Budget Reflections

With all the political drama in Washington these days over raising the US Government debt ceiling I thought perhaps I should see if it was possible to add a wee bit of perspective. I've taken the information portrayed in the following charts from the President's web page for his 2012 budget proposal.



This chart tells the basic story of the US Government Budget from 1950 - 2010. I realize the image here is pretty small, but if you click on the image you can see a larger more readable version. The blue line reflects millions of dollars spent annually by the US Congress, while the green line reflects millions of dollars annually taken in by the US Congress. The red line reflects the budget deficit and therefore the millions of dollars that have been borrowed annually by the US Congress since 1950.

So what basic story do I think this chart tells? From 1950 until about 1975 or 1980 there seemed to be almost no trend up or down in terms of the amount of money Congress decided to borrow each year. This period was followed by an increase in the annual amount of money Congress borrowed but this new period also showed a fairly horizontal line and thus not much of a tendency to further increase the amount of annual borrowing. Congress balanced the budget and even seems to have spent less than it took in for about three years around the year 2000. The trend shown by the red line depicts a significant increase in the amount of money Congress has chosen to borrow annually since around the year 2000.

Notice also that during the entire period from 1950 until 2010 the annual amounts taken in and spent by Congress increased. The green line which represents annual receipts shows almost a linear trend upward since around 1980, while in contrast, the blue line representing the amount Congress has spent annually kicks into a "new gear" with a much steeper line. Take note also that over this period from 1950-2010 there have been both recessions and expansions, and there have been both increases and decreases in the income tax rates imposed by Congress. Nonetheless, the story of Congress and the budget it has chosen annually reflects more revenues year to year and more spending year to year. The story also seems to be that Congress's habit of borrowing also kicked in to another gear since the last two or three budgets that were in surplus.

I suspect someone might say that this is not the proper way to evaluate the US Budget, so here is a picture of this same story but told in a chart the depicts receipts, outlays, and deficit/surplus as a percent of GDP.




Perhaps the story to notice from this chart is that both revenues and outlays as a percent of GDP have relatively flat trend lines starting around 1970. Also these trends are such that annual outlays have been around 20% of GDP while annual receipts have been around 18%. Of course periods of recession have reduced annual receipts. Once again I will point out that these trends include periods of recession and expansion as well as increases and decreases in income tax rates, and still a pretty flat trend. Also note that with the year 2008 there was a substantial increase in outlays as a percent of GDP, and an increase that has no precedent over this 60 years period.

It seems to me that Congress has acted less constrained concerning spending choices over time, and most recently Congress has shifted into another gear with spending and borrowing. I suppose we could fuss over whether Congress has a spending problem or a revenue problem, and thus we could pick the Republican side or the Democrat side with respect to the current debate over the debt limit. Yet, we know that revenues decline in recession, and without increasing any income tax rates, revenues will again increase (as reflected in the first chart) with expansion. But Congress has seen a significant recent decrease in revenue because of recession, and instead of reducing outlays or even holding outlays constant Congress has chosen to significantly increase annual spending. Where is Congress getting the money to increase it's annual spending so much? The amount borrowed has been increased to about 10% of annual GDP, which also is a number without precedent over this six decade period.

So, this last chart gives us some perspective on the choices Congress has made over the last 60 years with respect to the amount it borrows annually. The bars depict the amount number of cents borrowed by Congress for every dollar it spend. Years without bars mean that the budget


was in surplus and no money was borrowed that year. For the first 25 years over the period portrayed in the chart, Congress mostly borrowed less than 10 cents annually for every dollar it spent. Only 6 times between 1950 and 2008 did Congress annually borrow as much as around 20 cents of every dollar it spent. But, Congressional behavior changed significantly for the last two years of this period because in these last two years Congress has borrowed about 40 cents of every dollar it spent.

I suppose some may say we should understand the dire economic situation that characterized these last two years, and therefore Congress had to take action or else. But note that over the 60 years of Congressional behavior depicted in these charts there were, as I wrote earlier, plenty of recessions and expansions, and there were also times when Congress both increased and decreased income tax rates. I'm thinking it is very difficult to justify borrowing 40 cents of every dollar spent, even given the recent recession.

I'm thinking the annual budgetary behavior of Congress has been showing a trend from 1950 until now of more annual revenue, more annual spending, and more annual borrowing. This is the way I put recent budgetary politics into perspective.

Congress, along with the President, are debating whether to increase the ceiling on the aggregate amount of borrowing and debt that our national government can incur. I know some of these leaders think it is necessary to increase this ceiling or else bad things will happen. Borrowing 40 cents of every dollar spent seems like a bad thing has already happened. The trends since 1950 depicted in these three diagrams perhaps suggest it is unwise to allow our representatives in Washington to think they can continue to borrow and borrow and borrow. When our representatives are borrowing 40 cents of every dollar they spend perhaps it is already too late to think these folks can learn some fiscal responsibility.

I've described this budgetary perspective in terms of the actions of Congress instead of the President. Of course, much of the attention in public discussions is tuned in to the President. But, keep in mind that the President does not have the power to tax, and his authority to spend is granted by Congress. In addition, the President does not have the constitutional power to borrow money. That is a Congressional power. I think it is unwise to put all of the attention on the President, and it is much better for us to blame members of Congress when they vote for borrowing, taxing, and spending policies. But, of course, since the President can veto budgets presented to him by Congressional budget bills, the President also should be seen as responsible when the fiscal actions of the national government are irresponsible.

The Government Budget & Government Borrowing

Congressman Ryan unveiled his proposed U.S. budget yesterday, and of course there has been much recent talk in politics about taxing, spending, budgets, deficits, and debt.

There is even a lot of political theater these days over whether to continue to fund government in the current fiscal year since the last Congress failed to pass a budget. Well, I write "failed," but I suspect the people in charge of the last Congress, for whatever reasons, may simply have chosen not to pass a budget.

It seems Congressman Ryan is trying to lead Congressional budget choices in the direction of balancing the U.S. government budget some time in the future. I suppose that may seem a worthy goal for the government's future, but I'm wondering what sense it makes for government to routinely run a deficit?

When the President and members of Congress choose to run a government deficit it means that the President and members of Congress are choosing to spend more in any year than the government takes in through taxation in that year. This means the President and members of Congress are choosing to borrow at least some of the money they spend "on our behalf."

Well, how often have the President and members of Congress chosen to borrow money? When the President and members of Congress choose to borrow money, how much do they borrow?

To answer these questions I went to the web page for the President's annual budget, and I downloaded the historical tables in spreadsheet form. It turns out that in only 6 years in the last 50 years have the President and members of Congress chosen not to borrow money to spend on government projects and activities. It seems rather routine for the President and members of Congress to borrow money for the things they do "on our behalf."

To get a sense of how much the President and members of Congress choose to borrow when they borrow I used the spreadsheets to calculate how many cents of every dollar spent by the President and members of Congress in any year come from borrowed money. In 1980 for example the President and members of Congress borrowed 20 cents of every dollar they spent, and back in 1970 they borrowed only 1 cent of every dollar they spent.

The two largest years for borrowing by the President and members of Congress over all of the last half century have come in the 2009 and 2010 budget years. In 2009 the President and members of Congress borrowed 40 cents for every dollar they spent that year, and in 2010 they borrowed 42 cents on every dollar they spent. The next largest amount borrowed was in 1983 when the President and members of Congress borrowed 26 cents on every dollar they spent.

In the current budget year the President offered to Congress a budget proposal that apparently proposed borrowing 33 cents for every dollar they would spend in the 2011 budget year. I see from today's editorial in Investor's Business Daily that the President and members of Congress are finding it difficult to agree to cutting $33 billion from the 2011 budget. In other words, the President and members of Congress are arguing over whether they should borrow 33 cents or only 32 cents on every dollar they spend during the 2011 budget year. No, I'm not kidding.

Once again I wonder why the President and members of Congress want to borrow money at all, much less 40 cents or even 30 cents for every dollar they spend on our behalf. I understand Congressman Ryan, as well as many other republican members of the House, are proposing that the U.S. budget return to 2008 spending levels, and this is like proposing to return to a year in which the President and members of Congress chose to only borrow 15 cents on every dollar they spent that year. Why not propose a return to 1970 when the President and members of Congress chose to only borrow one penny for every dollar they spent?

I don't think it is easy to pick out the specific things the President and members of Congress borrow money for. So, I think it is acceptable to conceptually frame their choices as borrowing money for every government policy, action, and activity. Recently Senate Majority Leader Reid appeared on YouTube lamenting the idea that some members of Congress had proposed no longer funding a government program that subsidized the annual Cowboy Poetry Festival in Elko Nevada.

No, I'm not kidding. The President and members of Congress borrowed about 40 cents in 2009 and 2010 for every dollar they spent on this Cowboy Poetry Festival. Imagine that. I recently borrowed money to purchase a home, and the President and members of Congress are borrowing 40% of the money they spend to fund this Cowboy Poetry Festival.

Honestly, I can't imagine how anyone could justify using Congress's constitutional power to tax to gain the money to fund a Cowboy poetry festival, much less borrow 40% of the money from our future incomes and from the future incomes of our kids to fund such an activity. Of course, I even suspect that such programs as these should be declared unconstitutional because I simply can't find "Congress shall have the power to subsidize Cowboy Poetry Festivals" in the list of enumerated powers in Article 1, Section 8 of our Constitution.

But, then again, I might change my tune if I thought, as Senator Reid seems to think, that ending the government program in question would mean that the tens of thousands of people who attend the Cowboy Poetry Festival each year "would not exist." Maybe the President and members of Congress should borrow money so that these people can continue to live, eh?

Cotton Subsidies

Check out THIS VIDEO about cotton subsidies. So, how do you like the idea that some of your tax dollars (well, perhaps some of the dollars borrowed by Congress) are being spent to subsidize cotton farmers in Brazil?

Our government enjoys supplying rent seeking so much that it supplies rent seeking farmers from other countries. Very interesting, eh?

Oh, I've got an idea. If the people in Congress really are interested in cutting down the size of their budget deficit, then the least they could do is end cotton subsidies both for farmers in the United States as well as for farmers in other countries.

Economists Used to Believe This

PETER BOETTKE has a very interesting post about the conceptual context for the work of Israel Kirzner. Students in economics classrooms today may be interested in the history of economic thought that Boettke describes in his post. I think there is a significant delay between where economic analysis is currently and what is presented in undergraduate textbooks and course work. Thus, as you read Boettke's history you may recognize that much undergraduate economics is consistent with a conceptual economic framework that was the foundation of the economic discipline some decades ago. I think this is especially true with respect to the analysis of entrepreneurship, public policy, and prosperity.

Speaking Sense To Government

FIVE ECONOMISTS TALK SENSE, instead of nonsense with respect to government and the economy. Here are some of examples:

"Nobel Prize-winning economist Edward Prescott examined international labor market data and showed that changes in tax rates on labor are associated with changes in employment and hours worked. From the 1970s to the 1990s, the effective tax rate on work increased by an average of 28% in Germany, France and Italy. Over that same period, work hours fell by an average of 22% in those three countries. When higher taxes reduce the reward for work, you get less of it."

"Having "skin in the game," unsurprisingly, leads to superior outcomes. As Milton Friedman famously observed: "Nobody spends somebody else's money as wisely as they spend their own." When legislators put other people's money at risk—as when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bought risky mortgages—crisis and economic hardship inevitably result. When minimal co-payments and low deductibles are mandated in the insurance market, wasteful health-care spending balloons."

The 2010 health-care law undermined positive reforms underway since the late 1990s, including higher co-payments and health savings accounts. The law should be repealed before its regulations and price controls further damage availability and quality of care. It should be replaced with policies that target specific health market concerns: quality, affordability and access. Making out-of-pocket expenditures and individual purchases of health insurance tax deductible, enhancing health savings accounts, and improving access to medical information are keys to more consumer involvement. Allowing consumers to buy insurance across state lines will lower the cost of insurance.

You really should read the whole piece.

Congressional Corruption

HOT AIR:

"The scholarships were publicly intended as charity, a way to impact the community by giving underprivileged students an opportunity to get an education they otherwise may miss. Instead, the two Representatives turned it into an entitlement program for the children and grandchildren of the already-powerful. Regardless of whether the CBC had explicit language barring the awarding of funds to family members, anyone with a sense of ethics would have known that putting that scholarship money into the hands of their own family violated the ostensible spirit of the charity. It also shows Bishop and Johnson as greedy, self-absorbed malefactors whose only consideration of the power they hold is how it can personally benefit themselves and their family."

Ain't Rocket Science

PETER BOETTKE:

"I don't possess a crystal ball, so I cannot forecast the economic future. But I do know that it is not good to expand the monetary base 140% or to run deficits the size we have, or accumulate public debt as we have. . . . This 'ain't rocket science'! There will be a day of reckoning due to the monetary mischief and fiscal irresponsibility.

I also know that the problems we are facing are not 'market problems' --- it is not that actors are all of a sudden 'irrational', and it is not that markets are inherently 'unstable'. Everything we are seeing in market behavior is a rational response to the environment created by public policy. This is not a psychological problem we are dealing with, it is a public policy problem. Bad public policy produce bad incentives which in turn produce bad results. Ultimately, this is a problem of bad ideas which result in bad public policies. Again, this ain't rocket science. The role of the economists in all of this should be like my Dad when I was a teenager (and truth be told an adult), and grab policy makers by the shoulders star them squarely in the face and state clearly 'this isn't rocket science' and explain clearly the Econ 101 basics of why the decisions we have made so far have not been correct."

Right on and well said: "Everything we are seeing in market behavior is a rational response to the environment created by public policy."

Unintended Health Insurance Consequences

WASHINGTON (AP):

Some major health insurance companies will no longer issue certain types of policies for children, an unintended consequence of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law, state officials said Friday.

[ . . . ]

The major types of coverage for children - employer plans and government programs - are not be affected by the disruption. But a subset of policies - those that cover children as individuals - may run into problems. Even so, insurers are not canceling children's coverage already issued, but refusing to write new policies.

The administration reacted sharply to the pullback. "We're disappointed that a small number of insurance companies are taking this unwarranted and unnecessary step," said Jessica Santillo, a spokeswoman for the Health and Human Services department.

Yesterday it was unintended consequences of "financial reform."

I wonder how people in the administration know these actions by insurance companies are "unwarranted and unnecessary?" It seems to me they must lack the knowledge these businesses need in their efforts to make a profit, and thus a living for many people, by supplying others with health insurance. The "health care reform" statute seems to attempt to force insurance businesses to structure risk pools in specific ways that would not otherwise have been chosen by these businesses. It seems to me one likely result of such government actions will be that at least some insurance businesses find that it is better to stop insuring than to try to earn a living insuring and following the government's new statute.

Economists on Government & This Recession

JOHN B. TAYLOR:

Some argue that we need more deficit spending—another stimulus package—to boost the economy. I agree that the economy needs a boost, but not in the form of increased deficit spending. In my view, the economy is being held back by high deficit spending and related policy uncertainties. The large deficits are causing the federal debt to explode, raising concerns about how it will be financed.

VERNON L. SMITH:

So what has been the government’s response in the current crisis? Besides spending stimulus, it was tax incentives for new home buyers and cash for clunkers if you bought a new car. All three are programs for borrowing output, homes and cars from future production and sales. Using subsidies to pump up home sales beyond what people could afford was the problem that led to the crisis. Now the problem is touted as the solution.

Liability For An Uncertain Future?

WALL STREET JOURNAL:

The nation's three dominant credit-ratings providers have made an urgent new request of their clients: Please don't use our credit ratings.

The odd plea is emerging as the first consequence of the financial overhaul that is to be signed into law by President Obama on Wednesday. And it already is creating havoc in the bond markets, parts of which are shutting down in response to the request.

Standard & Poor's, Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Ratings are all refusing to allow their ratings to be used in documentation for new bond sales, each said in statements in recent days. Each says it fears being exposed to new legal liability created by the landmark Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

The new law will make ratings firms liable for the quality of their ratings decisions, effective immediately. The companies say that, until they get a better understanding of their legal exposure, they are refusing to let bond issuers use their ratings.

[ . . . ]

Once the bill is signed into law, advice by the services will be considered "expert" if used in formal documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That definition would make them legally liable for their work, meaning that it will be easier to sue an firm if a bond doesn't perform up to the stated rating.

That is a change from the current law, which considers ratings merely an opinion, protected like any other media such as a newspaper.

Perhaps this is a nice illustration of the unintended consequences of actions taken by government, in this case Congress and the President. I assume Congress and the President did not intend for providers of bond credit-ratings to respond to their legislation by deciding to no longer be providers of bond credit-ratings.

On the other hand, perhaps Congress and the President did intend for this result. Who will provide bond credit-ratings if private businesses won't? I guess government could.

I also wonder why it is thought to be a good idea to say a provider of credit-ratings has liability for actions taken by others who consult these ratings. It seems to me that trying to create such liability amounts to saying the providers of credit-ratings should be liable for an uncertain future. The future is inherently uncertain, and while credit-ratings may provide some information about the risk involved in certain kinds of actions taken today, it seems to me foolish to believe that credit-ratings accurately predict the uncertain risk, much less remove the risk.

Tax Cuts For The Most Fortunate

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner:

We believe it is appropriate to let those tax cuts that go to the most fortunate expire

Most fortunate?

So, I wonder how these guys think a person gets income? To use a phrase like "most fortunate" suggests to me that they don't think income is earned, because if it is earned then large income may go to those who work hardest and that have the greatest abilities in producing goods and services for others.

I wonder how these guys think a person gains wealth? It seems to me wealth is chosen. In order to have wealth, I think a person has to choose to save something out of current income by not spending everything that he or she earns. I don't think the bottom line is that a person is fortunate to have wealth. It seems to me a person is wise to try to choose wealth by not consuming all that he or she earns.

Tax Increases & The Economy

Ever wonder about the idea that tax increases can be bad for the economy? Well the TAXPROF BLOG points out that apparently the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers has just published research which "indicates that tax increases are highly contractionary":

Christina D. Romer (Chair, Council of Economic Advisers) & David H. Romer (UC-Berkeley, Department of Economics) have published The Macroeconomic Effects of Tax Changes: Estimates Based on a New Measure of Fiscal Shocks, 100 Am. Econ. Rev. 763 (2010). Here is the abstract:

This paper investigates the impact of tax changes on economic activity. We use the narrative record, such as presidential speeches and Congressional reports, to identify the size, timing, and principal motivation for all major postwar tax policy actions. This analysis allows us to separate legislated changes into those taken for reasons related to prospective economic conditions and those taken for more exogenous reasons. The behavior of output following these more exogenous changes indicates that tax increases are highly contractionary. The effects are strongly significant, highly robust, and much larger than those obtained using broader measures of tax changes.

Since the lead author is an adviser to the President, I'm wondering why the President, and members of Congress as well, are interested, especially in a period of recession and high unemployment, in letting tax cuts during the Bush Presidency expire. Hmmm. . . .tax increases "are highly contactionary." Maybe these elected representatives think the Romers aren't very good economic researchers? Maybe these elected representatives think there is good reason to believe things will be different this time around? Maybe these elected representatives have other goals than seeing the economy pull out of this recession?

Oil Spills, Oil Producers & Governments, Part 2

We might find another illustration of how earlier, and not easily seen, federal government actions could be involved in the BP Gulf Oil spill by wondering about something the President said in his recent OVAL OFFICE SPEECH:

Tomorrow, I will meet with the chairman of BP and inform him that he is to set aside whatever resources are required to compensate the workers and business owners who have been harmed as a result of his company's recklessness. In order to ensure that all legitimate claims are paid out in a fair and timely manner, the account must and will be administered by an independent third party.

I don't understand this idea that the President will tell BP it has a liability for this accident, and further that the President is going to require BP to create an escrow account to be administered by an "independent third party." Don't such actions fall within existing statutes and responsibilities of the courts?

My first thought is to wonder about why the President would think actions such as these are appropriate and necessary. I have assumed all along that BP is liable for the damages caused by the oil spilled because of an accident involved with it's production of oil. I certainly expect that if I caused oil to be spilled on my neighbor's property, that I would be fully liable for the damages my actions caused to my neighbor. So, I assume BP understands already that it is liable for the damages.

This also leads me to wonder about why the President has been spending so much time and effort in his public speeches insisting that BP is going to be made to pay for the environmental harm it has caused. Once again, I assume that in the same way that I know I would be made to pay for harm I cause to others, BP knows it will have to pay for the harm it's actions have caused others.

But, now I think that perhaps I should start to by a bit more of my normal, cynical and dismal economist self. Do I smell a rat?

Perhaps I do. THE OIL POLLUTION ACT OF 1990 "imposes liability for removal costs and damages resulting from an incident in which oil is discharged into navigable waters or adjoining shorelines or the exclusive economic zone." Yep, just what I assumed to be true. But, the Act also limits liability:

Liability is limited by specific dollar amounts, which vary depending on the type of vessel or facility involved. These limits do not apply in the case of gross negligence or willful misconduct or the violation of an applicable federal safety, construction, or operating regulation or for failure to cooperate in certain specified ways.

Oh my, perhaps BP believed it would not be fully liable for the damages caused by an accident that resulted a spill such as is occurring in the Gulf. Can you imagine, Congress created a statute in 1990 (and some President must have signed it) that both made it clear that BP was liable for damage caused by this accident, and at the same time the statute told BP (and all other oil producers in the Gulf) that it's liability was limited, that it would not be fully liable.

Well, you can see the incentives partial liability creates for BP and every other oil producer in the Gulf. At the margin, this limited liability statute should result in BP being at least a little less cautious in it's operations than it would otherwise be. Same incentive and response by all the Gulf oil producers as well. In other words, by limiting liability with this statute Congress and the President did two things: (1) Incentives to produce oil in the Gulf were increased, and (2) the probability of an accident occurring in the Gulf was increased.

Now we come to the second sentence in the limited liability quotation above. I suspect members of Congress also understood the incentives they would create by limiting liability. So, of course, Congress also writes laws that allow for the Executive Branch to regulate how BP, and the other oil producers in the Gulf, go about the business of producing oil from Gulf waters. Do you remember hearing reports after the accident, and before the Oval Office speech, that BP had requested that the government agency overseeing its operations modify several permits in the last day or two before the accident? I'm guessing this indicates that the government regulatory agency was at least supposed to be closely involved in making sure BP's actions met with all the things government thought BP was supposed to be doing.

I think this is another illustration of government's involvement in the actions of people and businesses in the economy that we cannot easily see. It is my view that government should not limit liability, and that especially in the case of deep water oil production government's role should be to strictly enforce full liability.

And, because government regulatory actions are involved in oil production in the Gulf, my default position has to be that government has some part to share in this accident, unless it can be shown that BP violated permits and regulations that if followed would have prevented this specific accident from happening.

Finally, returning to the President's statement quoted above, I think there are some additional serious issues to bring up. I will do that with another post in the future.

Enough Money?

TOM SOWELL on politicians and enough money:

"One of the many shallow statements that sound good-- if you don't stop and think about it-- is that 'at some point, you have made enough money.'

The key word in this statement, made by President Barack Obama recently, is "you." There is nothing wrong with my deciding how much money is enough for me or your deciding how much money is enough for you, but when politicians think that they should be deciding how much money is enough for other people, that is starting down a very slippery slope.

Politicians with the power to determine each citizen's income are no longer public servants. They are public masters."

You should read the whole piece.

Oil Spills, Oil Producers & Governments

The accident in the gulf is a pretty ugly sight. I'm sure there is no person alive who actually likes the accident and the aftermath, which of course continues.

Today you can read news reports of our political leaders holding hearings to point fingers and hold the culprit's feet to the fire. And, of course, you may have read or heard the President castigating the oil producers and promising to kick the appropriate butts.

You can also read reports that assert British Petroleum made numerous bad decisions that led to the accident, and which were made in an effort to save some costs and improve profits. Even if there is some truth to such allegations, there may be more involved in terms of the incentives and the tradeoffs than meets the eye.

I make this last assertion myself because I'm come to believe government policy is almost always involved, and it is almost always well hidden from us, unless we are able to spend much time reading statutes, regulations, and executive orders.

STEVEN HORWITZ has written about just one example related to this accident:

"The Jones Act is actually section 27 of the MMA and requires 'that all goods transported by water between U.S. ports be carried in U.S.-flag ships, constructed in the United States, owned by U.S. citizens, and crewed by U.S. citizens and U.S. permanent residents.' This, of course, includes the Gulf of Mexico. Thus any attempt to move equipment from one U.S. port to another for the purpose of either stopping or cleaning up the Deepwater Horizon leak must involve U.S. ships, fully constructed in the U.S., etc..

Of course in a world of globalized trade few such ships exist. In fact, a number of foreign-constructed or crewed ships are in U.S ports at the moment and could easily transport oil sucking equipment or more booms to the Gulf, but the Jones Act prevents them from doing so. Like the school buses that sat in a parking lot while folks were stranded during Hurricane Katrina, those non-U.S. ships and their equipment are sitting idle while an environmental disaster unfolds."

Professor Horwitz mentions the buses and Katrina because he wants to point out that the Jones Act was apparently waived two days after the hurricane. I haven't read the Jones Act, so I am not aware of whether the Act itself includes conditions by which it might be waived. Perhaps it does. Or, perhaps Congress must act to repeal the Act, something suggested by Professor Horwitz, and something I agree would be a good idea. In any case, Professor Horwitz does point out that apparently the President does not agree that Act should be waived or repealed since he writes: "Meanwhile, President Obama and others continue to insist that such a blanket waiver is 'not needed at this time.'"

So, who might benefit from not waiving or repealing the Jones Act? My guess would be some union or unions, and that is the view of Professor Horwitz as well. If this seems plausible, then it should also seem plausible to you that the President is making political calculations when he decides to trade off this against that. Not too surprising to me, and not really unlike the tradeoffs some assert BP made and should not have made.

It seems to me there are other aspects of this accident and the aftermath that involve government policies, regulations, and actions that are hidden from our easy view. I'm always suspicious this might be the case when our elected leaders in Washington rush to microphones and hearings to point fingers. I will try to add at least one or two additional illustrations in the next day or two.

Big Brother Is Green?

Washington Examiner:

"Alexandria residents soon will have to pay for larger home recycling bins featuring built-in monitoring devices.

The City Council added a mandatory $9 charge to its residents' annual waste collection fee.

That cash -- roughly $180,000 collected from 19,000 residents-- will pay for new larger recycling carts equipped with computer microchips, which will allow the city to keep tabs on its bins and track resident participation in the city's recycling program.

'If you know who's participating in the programs, you can focus your education and outreach to those who are not participating,' said Stacy Herring, Alexandria's recycling coordinator."

I suppose this is just like our parents when we were kids -- our paternal governors are just making sure we take out the trash, eh?