Dear Undercover Economist by Tim Harford

I wasn’t going to read this, but a friend saw it on my LibraryThing profile, and asked to borrow it. She promptly returned it, and informed me that it was actually a good read. So I had it sitting next to me at work for a few weeks, and every couple of days, while waiting for Stata to do its thing, I read a few pages.

The book is about a hundred columns from the London Financial Times Dear Economist agony aunt column. Overall, some entertaining material – but by the end I was sick of the repetitive formulaic responses…  One column in particular caught my eye:

Dear Undercover Economist

I am often offered the chance to have an unauthorised copy of a current film downloaded from the web. As family circumstances presently preclude cinema trips, these offers peresent my only chance to see some films promptly.

I do not believe in enjoying the fruits of other people’s labours for free. So is there any way in which I can make financial reparation for watching an unauthorised copy?

I live very close to a cinema so one option is to buy a ticket for a screening even though I won’t actually be there. Or I could buy a copy of the DVD when it comes out, even though I don’t really want to own it.

If I cannot put this right in economic terms, my conscience tells me not to watch!

– Yvonne, London

And Tim Harford’s response:

Dear Yvonne,

You should certianly watch since there is a positive benefit to you and zero marginal cost to the studio. Yet I believe you’re right to feel uneasy about free-riding on someone else’s time and talent. It is not only unfair but contributes to the wrong incentives for future filmmaking; in fact one suspects that the reason so many Hollywood blockbusters are childish is that the studios know adults don’t have time to go to the cinema any more.

But your proposal to buy cinema tickets or DVDs doesn’t seem right either. It sends a misleading signal that cinemas and DVDs are what you want. You might try alternating your patronage of cinemas and DVDs, while downloading pirated copies many more times than you actually need to. If the studios are paying attention they might start to realise what it is you really want.

All this assumes that your need for an immediate copy is genuine.

I would question that. Do you shoplift when you’re in a hurry?

I would question Tim’s answer on two fronts. First, his assertion that downloading ‘unauthorised’ copies of Hollywood movies “contributes to the wrong incentives for future filmmaking” is contradicted by his advice in the second paragraph (infact, even the advice in the second paragraph is wrong; alternating between cinemas and DVDs while downloading many unauthorised copies sends a confusing signal, if anything!).

Second, the suggestion that shoplifting if you’re in a hurry is the same as downloading a unauthorised copy because you don’t want to wait for the DVD implicitly assumes that watching a film on a DVD is the same as downloading a film – and obviously there are a number of differences. Not least to mention that, depending on where you live, it wouldn’t matter how long you wait – you could never download certain films.

Anyway, this book would be a good present for someone who likes faux novelty, formulaic comedy and one page chapters.

[Via http://tsu.tsu.mu]

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