Comments on: Redistributing Grades

By: Martin Brock

Martin Brock — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:55:53 +0000

"Of course, no one ever starved from receiving a C instead of a B."
Perhaps they should. Starving is an excellent feedback response to get someone to change their behavior.

The feedback depends on the extent of the starvation.

My point is that "redistributing" grades is not comparable to redistributing entitlement to consume for any number of reasons, so the analogy is sophistic. Even if I agree that redistributing grades is ridiculous, this conclusion has little bearing on the redistribution of entitlement to consume. It's an apples to oranges comparison.

By: Sammy

Sammy — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:20:08 +0000

"Of course, no one ever starved from receiving a C instead of a B."

Perhaps they should. Starving is an excellent feedback response to get someone to change their behavior.

While I wouldn't have starved had I received a C, life with my parents would have been more difficult. I earned a lot of freedom and credibility from my parents by demonstrating that I could pull good grades.

By: Martin Brock

Martin Brock — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:41:45 +0000

... grades (within a given institution) are purely the effect of effort, income is not ...

The distinction is sublimely ironic if my income is interest on a Treasury note, flowing directly from taxation itself. Once the entitlement to consume reaches me, it becomes sacrosant, and any further tug of forcible propriety drawing it away from me is tyrannical. Distribution toward me is not the problem. It's that damnable redistribution.

By: gappy

gappy — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:31:46 +0000

And of course, an academic grade is not a numeraire. You can't convert it to what you value most unless, as proposed above, one creates a market for grades. One could even create such a market without redistribution. Why not? Instinctively, because grades are useful only as a signal of ability. Trading or redistributing them would negate their value.

It's lovely for a mathematician to make a modest proposal, but for an professional economist to pick it up?.. Everyone hates taxes (and death), but i think that, beyond these cocktail-party arguments against them, no one can seriously argue that they are always intrinsically bad. Even in the shoes of Nozick, I would be willing to pay taxes at least for the effective workings of a judiciary system and common defense.

By: gappy

gappy — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:10:48 +0000

As a paradoxical proposal to show the flaw of taxation for redistributive purposes, this is unconvincing. The analogy with income taxation and redistribution fails because, whereas grades (within a given institution) are purely the effect of effort, income is not: endowment matters. I think that, as a counterintuitive example, Mankiw's tax on height (aimed at taxing an observable proxy for endowment) is more convincing. Having said that I, like Robin Hanson, am willing to endorse the height tax!