Via Greg Mankiw:

A causal relationship between gasoline prices and obesity is possible through mechanisms of increased exercise and decreased eating in restaurants. I use a fixed effects model to explore whether this theory has empirical support, finding that an additional $1 in real gasoline prices would reduce obesity in the U.S. by 15% after five years, and that 13% of the rise in obesity between 1979 and 2004 can be attributed to falling real gas prices during this period. [link to study]

Always take studies like these with a grain of salt.  However, if it makes sense, there could be some truth here.  The cheaper the gas, the less people walk, and the more they drive to eat out at restaurants.  Thus, the cheaper the gas, the more behavior occurs that could result in increased obesity.

It would be interesting to see some more studies on obesity/gasoline prices.

I wrote about Virginia’s traffic tickets recently.  Well an interesting paper came out regarding the motivation for traffic tickets.  The paper asserts that fundraising has something to do with the frequency of citations.

They examined every warning and citation written by police officers in all of Massachusetts, excluding Boston, during a two-month period in 2001 — over 60,000 in all. Their conclusion wasn’t shocking to an economist: money matters, even in traffic violations. They found a statistical link between a town’s finances and the likelihood that its police officers would issue a speeding ticket. The details are a little sticky, but they show that tickets were issued more often in places that were short on cash, and that out-of-towners received tickets more often than drivers with local addresses.

In Virginia, the new tickets were deliberately created to raise money.  However, the excessive fines can’t even be applied to out of state drivers.  So, in other words, this is no different from a tax, except it’s more expensive to collect the money and individuals are disproportionately screwed over instead of everyone being taxed fairly.   Oh well.

I’ve been thinking a lot about healthcare reform in the US recently, due to both the ‘08 election and Michael Moore’s Sicko film.  So many people have so many ideas about what should be done with healthcare, and some are wacky and some are crazy.  Personally, I don’t know exactly what should be done but I have a few thoughts.

The biggest problem with the healthcare system in the United States today is cost.  Healthcare costs in the US today are rising for many reasons, including longer life expectancy, medical malpractice suits, and developments of medicines to treat problems that we never treated before.  Costs are rising rapidly, and data suggests healthcare costs now equal 16% of GDP (this number is expected to increase dramatically over the next decade).

So how can we reduce costs?  Obviously, we can’t ask people to live shorter lives.  That’s way too ethically unsound.  I have two suggestions.

1. Focus on preventative medicine rather than reactive medicine.  In the US today, we often focus on reactive medicine (fix a problem once it starts) more than preventative medicine (fix a problem before it starts).   Doctors should be more proactive and be very serious about getting patients on healthy diets early, get them exercising early, and patients should be more serious about following their doctors’ guidelines.  How do we make sure patients act proactively?  See point #2.

If you had to raise money to finance transportation improvements, would you rather:

1. Slightly raise taxes so that everyone pays a share of the improvements?
2. Levy a huge tax on approximately random individuals?

Virginia’s relatively new speeding and other driver infraction fines are much like option #2.   “The purpose of the civil remedial fees imposed in this section is to generate revenue,” states Virginia Code 46.2-206.1.   Basically, Virginia needed money to pay for transportation expenses, and because the word tax is such taboo in the US today, “creative fundraising” was necessary.

This raises a few serious concerns.  First, because this law was deliberately created as a fundraising mechanism, the implication is that “we’re hoping for people to break the law so we can raise enough money.”  It’s almost as if Virginia is condoning setting up speed traps where the speed limit goes from 55 to 25 for no reason and setting cop cars all around the trap to raise money.

Because of the interesting comments on my last article (Why Does the Environment Matter?), I have decided to elaborate on my thoughts on whether true altruistic acts exist.  The first step in this investigation is to define altruism.

According to Princeton University’s Wordnet, the definition of altruism is:

The quality of unselfish concern for the welfare of others.

If this definition accurately portrays altruism, it follows that when one commits an altruistic act, he only thinks about how the act will benefits others, and not himself.  No self-interest by the altruist is involved.

But what exactly is a benefit that can accrue to one’s self or others?  The concept of utility is important in this case.  Utility is a measure of satisfaction/fulfillment/enjoyment/happiness/etcetera that one gains from a good, action, or consequence.  In a simple example: one gains utility when he finds $10 on the ground.  Another example: one gains utility when the weather forecast for tomorrow is pleasant.  So if one were to commit an altruistic act, according to the definition above, the act must be made without any consideration of one’s own utility.  I believe any act that is made without considering one’s own utility is impossible.