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Speeding has a constant negative effect on society. It doesn't vary based on how wealthy the speeder is. Therefore, if the rate is higher for some people, it's

by ikeboy 7y ago

Speeding has a constant negative effect on society. It doesn't vary based on how wealthy the speeder is. Therefore, if the rate is higher for some people, it's either insufficiently disincentivizing poorer people from speeding, or excessively disincentivizing richer people. Pigovian taxes should be constant. And if it's not pigovian, why give tickets at all?

majormajor 7y ago
It has a constant negative effect so you need a penalty that has a constant discouraging effect. A flat fee doesn't discourage those with more money to pay it. It simply says "speeding is OK if you have enough money."
- ikeboy 7y ago
  A constant fine has a constant discouraging effect.
  - Daishiman 7y ago
    No it doesn't. A fine's discouraging effect is proportional to the person's ability to pay for it.
    - ikeboy 7y ago
      I ran through the model in other comments, so I won't repeat it here, but in general the disincentive is the same, but people's desire to do something that costs a certain amount goes up with their wealth (called an income effect in economics).
  - cmdshiftf4 7y ago
    > A constant fine has a constant discouraging effect. In this scenario it is constant percentage though, as far as I understand it, and therefore should be constantly discouraging.
    - ikeboy 7y ago
      How so? I explained the model at length elsewhere in this thread.
john-radio 7y ago
> Therefore, if the rate is higher for some people, it's either insufficiently disincentivizing poorer people from speeding, or excessively disincentivizing richer people. I don't understand how you reached this conclusion. > Speeding has a constant negative effect on society. It doesn't vary based on how wealthy the speeder is. The point of a speeding ticket isn't to make things right or to make amends for the bad effects of irresponsible driving. That would be impossible, since people die. The point of a speeding ticket is to serve as a carrot, or to be "pigovian" to use the term that you just made me look up. Since you understand that well enough to apply the word, I don't see why you could possibly argue that they should be constant, since 1% of people or so can (and do) just straight up ignore the law otherwise. A frequently reposted thread explains the reasoning well - https://i.imgur.com/3OeKrA2.jpg https://i.imgur.com/3OeKrA2.jpg
- ikeboy 7y ago
  Yes, if you value doing something more than the negative value to society, you should be permitted to do it. This is the entire point of pigovian taxes.
  - davidgay 7y ago
    The trick here is to apply the golden rule and adjust the negative-value (an average-stranger's death) to the equivalent value applied to you (apparently-rich-stranger's death). Then you'll realise the cost of the fine needs to increase proportionally to your wealth (no, I'm not actually a fan of valuing people by their wealth, but you seem to be implicitly arguing for that).
    - ikeboy 7y ago
      No, because a wealthier person is not more likely to harm a wealthy person while speeding. Again, the harm is constant and does not depend on the speeder's wealth.
  - john-radio 7y ago
    Oh, I see what you're saying. Then no, taxes like this are not pigovian if pigovian means (wiki:) to "correct an undesirable or inefficient market outcome, and [to do so] by being set equal to the social cost of the negative externalities". Again, that goal is impossible with speeding tickets. The "negative externality" in this case is literally that someone dies. Someone (a lot of someones) lose their kid, their life partner, their parent. Can you apply relatively simple financial analysis to assign a dollar value to that? Sure, but fuck the kind of person that wants to do that; that is not acceptable for any so-called "justice system." The point of the tax is not to "correct the undesirable outcome" but rather to avert it as much as possible using reasonable techniques. And no, the rich absolutely should not be allowed to do it more.
mpweiher 7y ago
> It doesn't vary based on how wealthy the speeder is...Pigovian taxes should be constant. Speeding is not a market activity and a speeding ticket is not a tax. Speeding is either a misdemeanour or crime, that means it is simply prohibited. Period. The state of affairs you refer to, where the speeding ticket is considered just a cost of doing said activity is exactly what we want to avoid, and income-based speeding tickets are one mechanism that does this. The purpose of a speeding ticket is to (a) punish and (b) deter. Both essentially don't work on rich people if they are too low, as you amply demonstrated, because they will consider this just a tax or similar minor nuisance. On the other hand, the fine that would actually deter a rich person from speeding might bankrupt a less wealthy individual and would therefore be disproportionately heavy.
- ikeboy 7y ago
  >Speeding is either a misdemeanour or crime, that means it is simply prohibited. Period. Why not set the fine to a million dollars for everyone, then, or at least significantly boost the fine? Under my framework it's easy to answer, since it's inefficient to disincentivize speeding that much. >The state of affairs you refer to, where the speeding ticket is considered just a cost of doing said activity is exactly what we want to avoid Why? >Punish What is the benefit of punishment outside of deterrence? And for deterrence, the clear economic answer is to have the same amount of deterrence for everyone, which requires a constant fine.
  - mpweiher 7y ago
    > Why not set the fine to a million dollars for everyone Because that is a disproportionate punishment for speeding for most people. We don't do disproportionate punishment. It's also why we don't hang people for stealing. Any more. > [it's not a tax] Why? Because allowing speeding and taxing it is not the goal. We don't want people to speed. Even rich people. > same amount of deterrence for everyone Exactly. > which requires a constant fine. Er, no. Exactly the other way around. To make the deterrence effect the same for everyone absolutely requires the monetary amount to be different. The deterrence effect of an economic fine is hugely dependent on how much money you have/make. If I make a €10000 an hour, a €1000 fine is nothing, it takes me 6 minutes to work that off, so who cares? If I make €1000 a month, that's an entire month's worth of work, and so the fine will have a huge impact on me. In Germany, this is encoded by the concept of a "Tagessatz", which is essentially how much you make per day (minus what you absolutely need to live): https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagessatz https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagessatz They don't generally do this for traffic violations or other misdemeanours, but for felonies for which the sentence includes a monetary punishment. So you are convicted to pay, let's say 45 "Tagessätze". How much that is depends on how much you make. If you don't pay, you go to jail for that amount of time. Time is the equalizer, being roughly the same for everyone, unlike money. (Yes there are differences in how long people live, or have left to live, but it's not clear whether those should be accounted for and they are nothing comparable to the differences in income/wealth. See Taleb on "Extremistan" https://wou.edu/~shawd/mediocristan--extremistan.html https://wou.edu/~shawd/mediocristan--extremistan.html )

by ikeboy 7y ago

majormajor 7y ago

It has a constant negative effect so you need a penalty that has a constant discouraging effect. A flat fee doesn't discourage those with more money to pay it. It simply says "speeding is OK if you have enough money."

ikeboy 7y ago
A constant fine has a constant discouraging effect.
- Daishiman 7y ago
  No it doesn't. A fine's discouraging effect is proportional to the person's ability to pay for it.
  - ikeboy 7y ago
    I ran through the model in other comments, so I won't repeat it here, but in general the disincentive is the same, but people's desire to do something that costs a certain amount goes up with their wealth (called an income effect in economics).
- cmdshiftf4 7y ago
  > A constant fine has a constant discouraging effect. In this scenario it is constant percentage though, as far as I understand it, and therefore should be constantly discouraging.
  - ikeboy 7y ago
    How so? I explained the model at length elsewhere in this thread.

john-radio 7y ago

> Therefore, if the rate is higher for some people, it's either insufficiently disincentivizing poorer people from speeding, or excessively disincentivizing richer people. I don't understand how you reached this conclusion. > Speeding has a constant negative effect on society. It doesn't vary based on how wealthy the speeder is. The point of a speeding ticket isn't to make things right or to make amends for the bad effects of irresponsible driving. That would be impossible, since people die. The point of a speeding ticket is to serve as a carrot, or to be "pigovian" to use the term that you just made me look up. Since you understand that well enough to apply the word, I don't see why you could possibly argue that they should be constant, since 1% of people or so can (and do) just straight up ignore the law otherwise. A frequently reposted thread explains the reasoning well - https://i.imgur.com/3OeKrA2.jpg https://i.imgur.com/3OeKrA2.jpg

ikeboy 7y ago
Yes, if you value doing something more than the negative value to society, you should be permitted to do it. This is the entire point of pigovian taxes.
- davidgay 7y ago
  The trick here is to apply the golden rule and adjust the negative-value (an average-stranger's death) to the equivalent value applied to you (apparently-rich-stranger's death). Then you'll realise the cost of the fine needs to increase proportionally to your wealth (no, I'm not actually a fan of valuing people by their wealth, but you seem to be implicitly arguing for that).
  - ikeboy 7y ago
    No, because a wealthier person is not more likely to harm a wealthy person while speeding. Again, the harm is constant and does not depend on the speeder's wealth.
- john-radio 7y ago
  Oh, I see what you're saying. Then no, taxes like this are not pigovian if pigovian means (wiki:) to "correct an undesirable or inefficient market outcome, and [to do so] by being set equal to the social cost of the negative externalities". Again, that goal is impossible with speeding tickets. The "negative externality" in this case is literally that someone dies. Someone (a lot of someones) lose their kid, their life partner, their parent. Can you apply relatively simple financial analysis to assign a dollar value to that? Sure, but fuck the kind of person that wants to do that; that is not acceptable for any so-called "justice system." The point of the tax is not to "correct the undesirable outcome" but rather to avert it as much as possible using reasonable techniques. And no, the rich absolutely should not be allowed to do it more.

mpweiher 7y ago

> It doesn't vary based on how wealthy the speeder is...Pigovian taxes should be constant. Speeding is not a market activity and a speeding ticket is not a tax. Speeding is either a misdemeanour or crime, that means it is simply prohibited. Period. The state of affairs you refer to, where the speeding ticket is considered just a cost of doing said activity is exactly what we want to avoid, and income-based speeding tickets are one mechanism that does this. The purpose of a speeding ticket is to (a) punish and (b) deter. Both essentially don't work on rich people if they are too low, as you amply demonstrated, because they will consider this just a tax or similar minor nuisance. On the other hand, the fine that would actually deter a rich person from speeding might bankrupt a less wealthy individual and would therefore be disproportionately heavy.

ikeboy 7y ago
>Speeding is either a misdemeanour or crime, that means it is simply prohibited. Period. Why not set the fine to a million dollars for everyone, then, or at least significantly boost the fine? Under my framework it's easy to answer, since it's inefficient to disincentivize speeding that much. >The state of affairs you refer to, where the speeding ticket is considered just a cost of doing said activity is exactly what we want to avoid Why? >Punish What is the benefit of punishment outside of deterrence? And for deterrence, the clear economic answer is to have the same amount of deterrence for everyone, which requires a constant fine.
- mpweiher 7y ago
  > Why not set the fine to a million dollars for everyone Because that is a disproportionate punishment for speeding for most people. We don't do disproportionate punishment. It's also why we don't hang people for stealing. Any more. > [it's not a tax] Why? Because allowing speeding and taxing it is not the goal. We don't want people to speed. Even rich people. > same amount of deterrence for everyone Exactly. > which requires a constant fine. Er, no. Exactly the other way around. To make the deterrence effect the same for everyone absolutely requires the monetary amount to be different. The deterrence effect of an economic fine is hugely dependent on how much money you have/make. If I make a €10000 an hour, a €1000 fine is nothing, it takes me 6 minutes to work that off, so who cares? If I make €1000 a month, that's an entire month's worth of work, and so the fine will have a huge impact on me. In Germany, this is encoded by the concept of a "Tagessatz", which is essentially how much you make per day (minus what you absolutely need to live): https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagessatz https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagessatz They don't generally do this for traffic violations or other misdemeanours, but for felonies for which the sentence includes a monetary punishment. So you are convicted to pay, let's say 45 "Tagessätze". How much that is depends on how much you make. If you don't pay, you go to jail for that amount of time. Time is the equalizer, being roughly the same for everyone, unlike money. (Yes there are differences in how long people live, or have left to live, but it's not clear whether those should be accounted for and they are nothing comparable to the differences in income/wealth. See Taleb on "Extremistan" https://wou.edu/~shawd/mediocristan--extremistan.html https://wou.edu/~shawd/mediocristan--extremistan.html )