Uber Makes Economists Sad

Re:Uber Makes Economists Sad by nickff on Thursday July 10, 2014 @02:12PM (#8016190)

There does not need to be an "artificial limitation" to protect every 'commons'.[1] Many have made the case that services like Uber and Lyft actually free up street space, and allow more people to get to work faster, because less parking spaces are required, and these services usually allow ride-sharing, which is banned (or effectively prevented) by many cities which license taxis and taxi companies.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elinor_Ostrom

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Re:Uber Makes Economists Sad by tfinniga on Friday July 11, 2014 @05:22AM (#8019377)

Thanks for the link to Elinor Ostrom.

It seems like what she was saying is that if the people who own and use the common resource have the ability to create rules and enforce them, then they can avoid a tragedy of the commons. I'd totally agree with that, you need some way to govern the resource.

About freeing up street space, I'd be curious to see some kind of statistics about how many lyft drivers were headed that way anyway and just pick up passengers vs. how many are providing a taxi-like service. Is there a way in the lyft or uber software as a driver to say that you're only looking for passengers going from one location to another location?

It seems like slugging is more likely to provide those benefits.

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Re:Uber Makes Economists Sad by nickff on Friday July 11, 2014 @06:46PM (#8022949)

Using ownership of a resource to give an incentive for preservation and long-term thinking has its roots at least as far back as Armen A. Alchian.[1] Ostrom's achievement was finding that many cultures had alternative solutions, and that these solutions were very effective.

I am sorry to say that I do not have the statistics that you are looking for.

[1] http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PropertyRights.html

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