Not a fan unless we can identify them – is there some way we can make pre-commiting concentration ex-ante optional

Definitely, definitely, include the cost of the status quo. However, given that the post was focused on the benefits of lowering the quality I thought it would be apt to include the costs 😉

Benefit to exercising our brains – I’m pretty sure that one is internalised isn’t it 😉

I’m sure that the attention cost of reading the innumerable traffic signs and watching the lights all adds up, too. Lets not forget that we should all be driving defensively and watching out for pedestrians anyway. I think there’s also a benefit to our mental acuity of constantly exercising our brains 😉

Just because it is a accepted heuristic doesn’t mean that we can ignore economic logic when figuring out what is welfare maximising 😛

The way I see it we need to actually have a reason why forcing people to incur a cost is optimal. If the agents were completely independent of each other then it would be self evident that, in the absense of individuals who are a bit silly, such a policy is not welfare maximising – even if less people die.

However, if there is an externality we can make the argument. Namely, their is a social cost associated with people not paying attention on the road – when/if they crash they may well hurt other people. Given this specific element we could make a case for forcing agents to face an additional cost.

Matt’s of course right that paying attention is costly and that such costs ought be factored into any proper analysis.

In fact – if they didn’t do so before you could make the argument that the risk of dieing previously incurred a lower cost than having to consciously look out for traffic all the time. And now that people are looking out they are incurring that cost …