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Meryn
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3 years ago
in Kinsley Gets It! on Will Wilkinson
A lot of people are concerned about fairness, I think more specifically equal opportunity for each human being, not a different level for each human being who happens to be born (and keeps being) perfectly healthy and another level for more 'unfortunate' ones. (Allright, replace 'human being' for American because most people seem to care a lot more about people in their country then people abroad).
Because of averse selection, insurers will employ classification schemes for their clients. This means that if you happen to be born ill, you're worse off then someone who's born healthy, this is an independent factor from income.
Now classification isn't a bad thing, it helps keep costs down for the cheaper insurance clients. However, most people want to pay a fair amount, not the least amount. At least, they would want to compensate the unfortunate sick person for the extra health care costs they incur because of their sad fortune (possibly at birth).
Given the market tendency to client-classification, and given the high valuation of fairness in society, one needs to find a solution. One would be to explicitly redistribute income to the sick (i.e. those in a more expensive than average insurance class), which money is taken from the healty (those in a cheaper than average class). This is nice, because it's explicit distribution.
But it's backwards. Why even classify clients at all? If you let everyone pay the same amount of money, the nett effect would be the same. However, there would be no need for classification by insurers. This would save money.
A fair system which takes market forces into consideration could use such implicit income distrubtion as a more efficient way for distribution, not meant to hide anything. As an economist, I think you'd appreciate these cost savings, because those would benefit us all.
Because of averse selection, insurers will employ classification schemes for their clients. This means that if you happen to be born ill, you're worse off then someone who's born healthy, this is an independent factor from income.
Now classification isn't a bad thing, it helps keep costs down for the cheaper insurance clients. However, most people want to pay a fair amount, not the least amount. At least, they would want to compensate the unfortunate sick person for the extra health care costs they incur because of their sad fortune (possibly at birth).
Given the market tendency to client-classification, and given the high valuation of fairness in society, one needs to find a solution. One would be to explicitly redistribute income to the sick (i.e. those in a more expensive than average insurance class), which money is taken from the healty (those in a cheaper than average class). This is nice, because it's explicit distribution.
But it's backwards. Why even classify clients at all? If you let everyone pay the same amount of money, the nett effect would be the same. However, there would be no need for classification by insurers. This would save money.
A fair system which takes market forces into consideration could use such implicit income distrubtion as a more efficient way for distribution, not meant to hide anything. As an economist, I think you'd appreciate these cost savings, because those would benefit us all.
3 years ago
in Self-Deception and Self-Construction on Will Wilkinson
A very interesting post. It fits nicely with my current acts of introspection.
I think you could describe part of this issue as a difference between strategy and tactics. Strategy has much to do with your values. It forms a generic set of contraints to your future actions. If strategy was more specific, it would harm you if you encountered an unanticipated situations.
From this follows that a nice base strategy would be to stick to your values, which may include being open to re-evaluation of your values. In theory at least, one would develop an highly adapted set of values fairly quickly. Ofcourse, adapted to your environment, so one could change a lot if you'd move to a whole different country.
The most important thing that you can share would be your personal values. If one of your values is to stick to your promises (or adhere to the law), you could coordinate based on that. Ofcourse you could have some 'higher' values. If one of your values is honesty to improve cooporation, you should tell others about those higher values, so they know beforehand you won't keep your promises or adhere to the law in particular cases, depending on what specific higher values you may have.
So I think constantly updating your beliefs wouldn't have to hurt cooperation or coordination, because a fairly stable stragey will develop over time in everyone of us.
Aside from that, I wouldn't be surprised if someone who first describes himself as a Replublican would later describe himself as a Democrat (or Seventh Day Adventist), because describing yourself as a Republican already exposes the fact that such a person is willing to subscribe to a specific ideology, and even identify with it. I wouldn't count on someone to subscribe to a particular ideology forever. I believe such believes are not neccesarily stable.
I think you could describe part of this issue as a difference between strategy and tactics. Strategy has much to do with your values. It forms a generic set of contraints to your future actions. If strategy was more specific, it would harm you if you encountered an unanticipated situations.
From this follows that a nice base strategy would be to stick to your values, which may include being open to re-evaluation of your values. In theory at least, one would develop an highly adapted set of values fairly quickly. Ofcourse, adapted to your environment, so one could change a lot if you'd move to a whole different country.
The most important thing that you can share would be your personal values. If one of your values is to stick to your promises (or adhere to the law), you could coordinate based on that. Ofcourse you could have some 'higher' values. If one of your values is honesty to improve cooporation, you should tell others about those higher values, so they know beforehand you won't keep your promises or adhere to the law in particular cases, depending on what specific higher values you may have.
So I think constantly updating your beliefs wouldn't have to hurt cooperation or coordination, because a fairly stable stragey will develop over time in everyone of us.
Aside from that, I wouldn't be surprised if someone who first describes himself as a Replublican would later describe himself as a Democrat (or Seventh Day Adventist), because describing yourself as a Republican already exposes the fact that such a person is willing to subscribe to a specific ideology, and even identify with it. I wouldn't count on someone to subscribe to a particular ideology forever. I believe such believes are not neccesarily stable.
