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(Your) Time is (not our) money (or concern)
By Allen R. Sanderson. Allen R. Sanderson teaches economics at the University of Chicago
Published November 26, 2001
Would you rather try to exchange a blouse at Nordstrom's or contest a parking ticket? Book a London vacation with a travel agent or get a passport? Wait for a furniture delivery from Crate & Barrel or for cable TV service?
Most of us would agree that in each of the above pairings, the former activity is likely to be more pleasant and less wasteful of our time. This is no accident. Because they face competition from rivals, private firms have an incentive to provide efficient, dependable and courteous service. Otherwise, we could take our business elsewhere.
Government agencies and government-sponsored monopolies--public utilities, the post office, cable television companies and even our professional sports franchises--have less reason to worry: It is far more difficult, and in many cases impossible, to take our business elsewhere. The total amount one pays for a good or service is the money price plus the time price. Unlike private enterprise, public agencies have little incentive to economize on their citizens' money or time.
So we can walk into an automobile dealership and come out with a new car in an hour or two, and we can even purchase it in the evening or on a Saturday. Getting the required insurance coverage can be done over the phone. But one could easily waste the better part of a day--or two--getting a driver's license at the Illinois Department of Motor Vehicles.
A mall department store is open about 3,000 hours a year, including nights and weekends. And hours are extended in peak holiday shopping periods. If consumers want "24/7" service, they get it. The equivalent mantra for government agencies is "7/5," and because public employees have far more paid holidays and sick days than in the private sector, even that meager number of hours overestimates their effective availability.
Room & Board promises to deliver furniture within a two-hour window, and the driver actually comes. The ComEd, TCI or Ameritech representative may or may not show up on the scheduled day, and these companies require that someone be home at least half of the day--and if they don't come, you have to start the process anew. How about one month's complimentary service for any documented "no-show?"
Long queues at service windows and desks are a hallmark of operations at the central post office and federal government complex on Dearborn Street, the State of Illinois building and the Daley Center. Compare those locales with lines at Marshall Field's, the Gap or Harris Bank. And several grocery stores in the area advertise that whenever there are more than three people in line they will open another register; implementing that at city hall would constitute a reasonable response to a continual problem.
Because jurors, unlike clerks, attorneys and judges who comprise the other components of the legal system, are paid the equivalent of bus fare and a fast-food lunch for their day, there is little incentive for the courts to move through cases in a timely manner. Pay them $25 an hour--about what focus-group sponsors have to compensate participants for their opinions and reactions--and the system might be less bogged down.
When the United States Postal Service increases the price of first-class postage early next year, it won't have 35-cent stamps available in the weeks leading up to the changeover. We will have to wait in long lines for our strips of 1-cent "make-up" stamps, which they will likely run out of as well. A private business would require metered mail to bear the higher rate immediately but would still honor the prior rate for envelopes with stamps (it would make little economic sense for customers to hoard more than two or three months' worth of stamps, and this would eliminate those gargantuan lines).
Chicago's ubiquitous orange "No Parking" signs for street cleaning are more a means of generating revenues from violators and wasting citizens' time than they are in removing dirt and debris. If this chore were privatized and firms had to compete for the right to provide it, the price would be lower and the burden on residents' time would be an integral part of the bidding and decision-making process.
The term "unfunded mandates" refers to costs that the federal government imposes on state and/or local governments (and, indirectly, on businesses and taxpayers) by enacting legislation that does not provide monies for compliance. This can be anything from additional paperwork to setting up a monitoring agency or enforcement unit.
But there are also unfunded mandates when it comes to having these same agencies impose costs on all of us in the normal course of providing their services. As the above examples illustrate, they are usually passed on from federal, state or local governments to citizens in the form of higher prices, inconvenience and wasted time. We certainly do not consider our own time to be of no value or consequence; good government would not treat it that way either.
Copyright © 2001, Chicago Tribune
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