Kosnik, Lea

English

University of Missouri, St. Louis

University of Missouri, St. Louis IRL @ UMSL Department of Economics Faculty Works Department of Economics 1-1-2009 Letter: Regarding voting for charity's sake Lea Kosnik University of Missouri-St. Louis, kosnikl@umsl.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://irl.umsl.edu/econ-faculty Recommended Citation Kosnik, Lea, "Letter: Regarding voting for charity's sake" (2009). Department of Economics Faculty Works. 5. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2202/1553-3832.1473 Available at: https://irl.umsl.edu/econ-faculty/5 This Editorial is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Economics at IRL @ UMSL. It has been accepted for inclusion in Department of Economics Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of IRL @ UMSL. For more information, please contact marvinh@umsl.edu. University of Missouri-St. LouisFrom the SelectedWorks of Lea-Rachel Kosnik2009Letter: Regarding Voting for Charity's SakeThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC_BY-NC-ND International License.Available at: https://works.bepress.com/lea-rachel-kosnik/17/--Economists’ Voice February, 2009Letter: Regarding Voting for Charity’s SakeLEa KoSniK© The Berkeley Electronic PressDear Editors:Edlin et al.’s reason to “vote for charity’s sake” was a valiant attempt to justify, for the hard-nosed logical economist, why to vote on election day. As any pub-lic choice theorist knows, the individual benefit to voting (as measured by one’s probable effect on the election outcome) is too small compared to the individual costs (as measured in effort and time spent); so why vote, unless for charity’s sake?The answer as to why we vote, how-ever, may be simpler than trying to come up with a hypothetical charity value. It is likely more instinctual, in the same way that people in a Public Goods game will punish cheaters, at significant personal cost to themselves, just because their emo-tions and their instinct guides them to. Revenge, as modeled in these games, makes no sense. The individual costs are always greater than any individual benefits; how-ever, great numbers of people still do it. Why? One theory is that individuals will punish cheaters because it sets a precedent and a warning that will deter future actors who may consider cheating in the next round. Punishing cheaters at significant personal cost may, therefore, be rational in a dynamic social equilibrium, if not neces-sarily from a static, individualized perspec-tive. It is this instinct that may be driving voting behavior as well.We humans know instinctively—if not logically—having grown up as social --Economists’ Voice February, 2009animals, that some actions cause minor immediate personal losses, but are worth it for a dynamic social existence. Neoclas-sical models are wonderful at helping us to understand individual level decision-mak-ing when the only benefits and costs that matter are to a static, inward-looking indi-vidual. Our models have a much harder time (currently) at deciphering actions that involve dynamic social benefit and cost considerations.The answers to questions like Why vote? and Why punish cheaters? likely don’t lie in a contrived method to force social con-siderations into individual benefit and cost calculations, as was valiantly attempted in Edlin et al. (who among us is truly aware that our vote might have a hypothetical charity value of $50,000?). The answers likely lie in dynamic social organizing instincts that are as yet still poorly understood. We don’t know exactly why we vote, but we will one day, as economic research broadens into new and burgeoning fields. And I’m confi-dent the answer will be a rational one from a more dynamic perspective, because can 130 million voters really have been acting “irrationally” this past November 4th?Lea KosnikUniversity of Missouri-St. Louisreferences and further readingEdlin, Aaron S., Andrew Gelman and Noah Kaplan (2008) “Vote for Charity’s Sake,” The Economists’ Voice, 5(6): Art. 6.  

Letter: Regarding voting for charity\u27s sake

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Letter: Regarding voting for charity\u27s sake

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