economics

The problem of people who take more than their fair share of public services is as old as public services themselves. On a small scale, the problem merely blends into all the other inefficiencies in the system. But if freeloading becomes too pervasive, it can imperil the entire society. This may seem like an abstract economics or social sciences problem, but the tendency of people to request social services without demanding that they pay a fair amount for those services led directly to California bankrupting itself.

Economy got you down? Not sure if this whole “American capitalism” thing is working out for you? Looking for cheap housing? Well, you can always start from ideological scratch and build a new society on a free floating platform in the high seas.

No experiment can ethically test how humans behave in life-or-death situations. But two UCLA economists dug up the records of 41,000 Union soldiers from the American Civil War to see how men of shared or different backgrounds fared in the worst conditions.

They found that sharing common characteristics with fellow soldiers made all the difference in lowering desertion rates, not to mention surviving the horrors of prison camps. The least diverse companies still had one-third fewer desertions than even more diverse companies with higher morale or stronger commitment to the cause.

If you thought there was no science behind getting a speeding ticket, you’re right, kind of… It’s probably more of a case of economics. In North Carolina, at least, – where researchers examined 96 counties for a report in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Law and Economics – when local government revenue goes down, ticketing goes up.

Yes we’ve all said it before: public safety isn’t the only motivation for tickets. (Can’t you just give me a warning, Officer?) But now there is scientific proof of that long held suspicion.