How the Grinch stole ... property rights?
Economist Art Carden (a guest blogger for CSMEcon at Mises Economics Blog) has penned a new Grinch tale.
This image from the classic animated film, 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas,' based on the Dr. Seuss book of the same name, shows the Grinch stealing toys from the Who children down in Who-ville. In Art Carden's economics update on the story, the Grinch has something else in mind...
Courtesy of Warner Home Video
Over at Forbes.com, Art Carden has a brilliant retelling of Dr. Seuss’s “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” (ht: Greg Mankiw). Carden recasts the story as a parable about externalities and property rights.
He starts with the Grinch’s view that Who singing is a nuisance: Mises Economics Blog
He hated the shrieks of the Who girls and boys
For fifty-three years he’d put up with it now—
He had to stop Christmas from coming, somehow.
He asked and he questioned the whole thing’s legality
Then his eyes brightened: he screamed “externality!”
He reached for his textbooks; he knew what to do
He’d fight them with ideas from A.C. Pigou.
As regular readers know, Pigou argued that externalities — pollution, singing Whos, etc. — could be addressed by levying taxes that reflect the harm imposed. So maybe, the Grinch might reason, he should help himself to some Who presents and roastbeast whenever they sing.
But wait, as Ronald Coase noted years ago, it takes two to tango … and to create an externality. So the Whos have a rebuttal:
“We know that we’re noisy all through Christmas Day,
But if you don’t like it, it’s you who should pay!
“For we were here first, and homesteaded the rights
To sing, to make noise, and to hang Christmas lights
“The costs of our Christmas joy helped you to save!
They were fully reflected in the price of your cave!”
I am so using this in my class in the spring.
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