4 ms·
Why can't harm to the unborn simply be priced in so it's no longer an externality?
by kelseyfrog 2y ago
Why can't harm to the unborn simply be priced in so it's no longer an externality?
- masa331 2y agoHow would you price it?
- kelseyfrog 2y agoIt would incorporate a present value calculation for medical costs, present value of future earnings, work life expectancy, and account for disability-adjusted life years. The marginal price increase would correspond to the hazard ratio adjusted risk of causing harm.
- s1artibartfast 2y agobecause at some point it is no longer an economic question, but a moral one.
- peppers-ghost 2y agoIs this a serious question?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- kelseyfrog 2y agoYes. I feel like I have something to learn from the answers I receive. Especially, why are folks ok with pricing in externalities to some harms, but not others.
- lenerdenator 2y agoBecause that reduces the value transferred to shareholders.
- TimTheTinker 2y agoShould heroin merely be priced higher, not banned, because of the harm it causes to society? Consider that artificial pricing always creates the Cobra Effect: unintended consequences abound that eventually more than undermine the original intent. This is how George Soros legendarily broke the Bank of England - by taking advantage of artificial pricing (in particular, exchange rates). Furthermore, healthy societies enforce moral lines through criminal and civil law, not merely through fines and price manipulation.
- kelseyfrog 2y agoWhat about goods priced artificially low because they don't capture the cost of externalities? How can we be sure this isn't a case of artificially low prices?
- consteval 2y agoBecause, I think, the cost is incredibly hard to estimate. First off, when a birth defect does happen how can you even be sure Substance X caused it? Sometimes it's obvious, sometimes it's not. Secondly, how do you go about tracking that? Certainly we don't have a big database for the genome of every baby born. Third, what about substances that don't do acute harm, like lead? Lead poisoning is slow and deteriorates your mind. We know about it now, but for hypothetical new substance X how do we measure who got the poisoning and how much they have (do we take measurements every few years and plot a graph, adjusting the cost over time?) Fourth, how do we measure esoteric costs? For example this substance causes loss of intelligence. That could translate into lower paying jobs over a lifetime - could. Do we compare average intelligence income to the income of these individuals and then the difference is the cost? What if some of the individuals could have been geniuses, how do we tell? In general, how do we measure against things that have not happened in our reality?
- zug_zug 2y agoHow much would I need to reimburse you for giving you Down syndrome, for example
- kelseyfrog 2y agoUsually we answer questions about prices using markets. Markets are a great way at determining exactly how much something costs