Political lobbying explained through the example of all-pay auctions

Blog post with explanation: http://tinyurl.com/y9fuefg . This is from Lecture 18 (http://tinyurl.com/ylf7svt) of my EEP 100 class (http://www.kysq.org/EEP100/).

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• politics
• economics
• lobbying
• auctions
• teaching

[VNLAICE96]

@dafeltre Because it is an all pay auction, she would have to pay the 75 cents even though the leading bid was currently a dollar. This would result in losing 75 cents. But by bidding $1.25, she would be the leading bid and win the dollar, resulting in a loss of only 25 cents.

[GreenFiles]

I love the tool who says "I'll pay $2 to keep this going"

[stormseeker442]

@allseevid how is he communist?

[stormseeker442]

@dafeltre to fuck over the other people

[kelseybutler94]

INTERESTING!!!thumbs up!

[allseevid]

that communist in front clearly has no idea about what he's talkin' about

[dafeltre]

I don't understand this example. Why is the first person willing to raise her bid from .75 to 1.25?

[oiuoiu988]

please define the role of "limited government" and explain why those things would be better provided by the state(coercive action) than private actors(voluntary action).

do you believe in market failures?

[oiuoiu988]

(cont)

the most violent criminals would be absolutely ostricized from a stateless society but in a state, all they have to do is game the system, if they lose the game they do their time and come right back into society like nothing ever happened. i live in a very nice neighborhood in the nw suburbs of chicago and a guy who murdered and sexually abused a toddler in 1981 lives across the street from me.

[oiuoiu988]

your brute force argument is applicable to a more primitive psycho-class, i.e., america 200 years ago or africa now. but it only applies slightly even to that. if there was no state, violent crime would be much lower for a littany of reasons but i'll list a few

1. there would be no victimless crime laws so law enforcement agencies would have much more time to investigate real crimes.

2. humans are better off cooperating with each other, see; nash equilibrium.

3. there would be no system to game

[oiuoiu988]

@Radeo

@Radeo

from the statement that it is impossible to limit government, follows the logical conclusion that we ought not to have government. thats pretty simple. what im arguing here is that it is impossible to limit government. your last statement(in your 1st comment) only weakens your argument.

unlimited irrationality? what does that even mean? rationality is humans employing means to pursue ends, not humans using means to pursue your personal preference.