A distinguished colleague (whom I will spare the outing) teaches in the lecture room after me. I received this email from him:
Subject: Any chance you could erase the Leverdome blackboard?
Or is this a Coase theorem thing?
Not the Coase Theorem, no. The Coase Theorem is all about parties coming together to form agreeements that enhance welfare. No, my dust-bound comrade this is much simpler seeing as how aggregate welfare is improved by the unilateral deviation of a single agent, namely me.
You see those days when we were following the conventional norm, according to which each Professor erases the chalkboard after his own lecture leaving a clean board for the next class, we were leaving a free lunch just sitting there on the table. Because any one of us could have changed course, leaving the board to be erased by the next guy before his class, thus triggering a switch to the superior erase-before convention.
Now as I am sure I don’t have to explain to you, once the convention is settled every Professor erases exactly once per day. So nobody is any worse off. But as you have by now noticed, that one particular Professor who initiated the switch avoids erasing that one time and is therefore strictly better off. A Pareto improvement! but of course you are now well-trained at spotting those having just yesterday surveyed my lecture notes covering that very subject as you were erasing them from the Leverdome chalkboard.
Cheap Talk 
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April 7, 2011 at 10:18 am
Lones Smith
By the same token, in O’Hare airport, toilets have an automatic sealed rap that rotates. Now my memory is faint, and maybe need another trip to Chicago, but I think their toilets tell “patrons” to hit the button *after* you use the toilet. But in this case, unlike the blackboard scenario, there is unobservability of the public good provision. Did he or didn’t he? And so when you arrive in the stall, natural uncertainty leads you to click the button again. Wasteful. In general, it is smarter to rely on self-interested behavior than public-spiritness. That is not Coase, I agree.
Now this is not to compare your clever blackboard writings with …..
December 1, 2012 at 1:34 am
Mugasa
I think the probadlem for many peoadple with rememadberading past hurts is they have no desire to learn from thier ewxadpeadriadences — that would reqiure them to think about and peradhaps even change thier opinadion of themadselves and who they are, and that is beyond doing for a lot of peoadple. It is so much easadier to simadply blame someadone else for hurtadinga0you. Worse, most peoadple have no desire to work through relaadtionadship hurts and let the relaadtionadship itself grow from them. It’s easadier to cut off the relaadtionadship than to work to preadserve it for them. Hence the shaladlowadness of our sociadety, rather than havading a lot of bright, creadative peoadple workading through their issues and havading interadestading, long-lasting relaadtionadships that can endure the storms life is bound to proadduce. Sociadety becomes weaker as a whole because peoadple lack the strength to work out their part of it, and we all sufadfer as a result.I think that was the thought the movie left with me — that all these lives had been shatadtered and the relaadtionadships destroyed rather than grown, much as the shatadterading of his memadoadries as they were erased. We can only build peradsonal and relaadtionadship stregth by workading through the boreaddom, the anger, the sadadness, and inteadgratading them into our whole being, rather than tryading to delete them from it. There was hope at the end, because of the recogadniadtion that if there wasn’t hope, the good leaves with the bad. The only way to hold onto what is good in our lives is to have hope that we can learn and grow, and not just givea0up.
April 7, 2011 at 12:16 pm
P
The UChicago gym makes you wipe off machines after you’ve used them. Also, signs tell you to reset weights after you’re done. Doesn’t make any sense.
April 7, 2011 at 12:43 pm
Daniel
There’s a difference between blackboards, toilets, and machines in the gym. With blackboards, it makes little or no difference whether it is erased right after use or hours later. Leave a toilet unflushed or a treadmill dirty for a few days and the whole room starts to stink. There is probably a social cost of waiting for the next person to do the task. (Although this might be negligible in a busy airport or during peak time in the gym).
April 7, 2011 at 2:53 pm
Alex Tabarrok
Your distinguished colleague was really telling you that you were not signaling the appropriate deference.
April 7, 2011 at 9:55 pm
Matt
Did you really get a free lunch? I bet writing this post took more time than erasing that chalkboard…
April 10, 2011 at 10:36 am
Daniel Reeves
I love how all the economists are piling on to praise what normal people would call rude. That’s why I’m here too!
It’s a bigger pareto improvement than just that! Sometimes at the end of the day the cleaning staff actually washes the blackboard, which is no easier for them if it’s first been erased.
Lones Smith made one toilet analogy already but this reminds that classic and ridiculous debate about toilet seat configuration protocol. (Though in that case I disagree with the natural — for an economist — resolution, but for different reasons.)
April 11, 2011 at 10:52 pm
The Wife
I like the toilet analogy. I never read the sign maybe once. I would definitely wave at the red flashing light to get a new plastic cover. I would assume that the sign says wave before sitting. 🙂 In this case, everyone who goes to the stall will wave once.
Now… does this strategy transfer to the black board? At first thought, of course it makes sense to erase before the class because everyone will erase once. Is that true? Actually the first professor who teaches has a clean board and doesn’t get to erase anything. Hmm… I wonder who is the firs professort to teach at the lecture hall? Is that Jeff? Oh yeah… he cracked up a big smile. Now… that everyone knows, will he clean the board after his class? :))))
April 12, 2011 at 12:01 am
Daniel Reeves
Ha, busted!
Another way to view this is as an application of the Principle of Delayed Commitment — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_Commitment .
Namely, don’t erase the board unless certain that it needs to be erased, ie, because you need to use it right now.
But I suppose in light of that email from Distinguished Colleague, the PDC doesn’t really get Jeff off the hook here.
February 14, 2013 at 5:24 am
Elizabeth bell
Just clean up your own mess, dude