為什麼要唸書

為什麼要唸書？現在的你或許早已遠離書本，但想想最近一次唸書的年紀吧...大學？唸書是為了找到更好的工作。為了找到更好的工作，所以要上好的大學、好的系。為了這些目標，高中就必須努力唸書。而為了增加達成目標的機會，最好能唸好的高中。為了能唸好的高中，國中還是認真點吧。為了國中能夠不落後別人，還是從小學開始努力比較好...

唸書就像是一種練習。這種練習是為了能在比賽中超越別人。就像各式運動競賽一樣，考試也是一種比賽。當田徑選手一次一次地在場上練習衝刺時，考試選手也在一遍一遍地溫習書本。田徑選手得到的獎牌證明了他曾有一次是全場跑得最快的人，而考試選手得到的成績證明了他曾有一次是多麼地超越別人。當國家隊要選國手時，他們可能會看選手獎牌的多寡來決定。而當公司要選人時，他們就看學位及考試成績了。並不是說考試考的好就是人才，只是那就是一種選人的標準。這種標準未必最好，但也許是成本最低的選才系統。想想若公司選人的標準改成賽跑好了。不難想像若應徵的人跟參加考試的人一樣多的話，公司要花多少錢來安排相關的比賽。說真的，我還真想不出來有什麼系統是跟考試一樣可以同時容納這麼多人一起比賽，卻又花更少成本的。因此，這也不難理解為什麼科舉會成為人多地廣的中國的傳統選才方式。

不過，雖然大學生或高中生多少可以了解考試對未來發展的重要性，但對國中國小生來說，"未來"似乎還有些遙遠。這也無怪父母在這個時期總要管教小孩唸書的行為，因為父母比小孩更能感受到"未來"。假設唸書真的是重要的，如何管教-或如何吸引小孩唸書-就是一個重要的課題。

這麼長的引言，只是我對這則新聞的感想。它的大意是說為了增加低收入小孩對唸書的興趣，紐約市決定在部份學校提供免費手機給小孩。當他們在學業上表現優良時，就可能會得到一個新的鈴聲、更多的訊息、甚至收到Jay-Z打來的電話。對有些人來說，這可能抹滅"為自己的未來而唸書"的正面意義。但就經濟學家來看，未來的效益在經過 discount之後，加上不確定性的考量，對小孩子來說也許真的比不上一通Jay-Z現在打來的電話呢。

Coase theorem on the Internet

Read Levitt's idea here and my comment below.

I suspect your inquiry is a little bit problematic. As you mentioned, the Coase theorem predicts people who evaluate the object with highest value will obtain the property right of that object, regardless of initial allocation and without transaction cost. However, in your question you stated…

What URLs seem like they should “logically” take visitors to one place…

By which you implicitly assuming you know the rank of people’s evaluation. For example, in your post you assume American Airline would value the URL more than American magazine. It is easy to give some counter examples of this. For instance, American Airline already built their reputation, and people who want to purchase a ticket will not easily give up when they found www.american.com is not the destination they thought. However, for a new magazine, they need to broaden their potential reader. They may hope people can find them easily by just typing in american.com, or they want to take advantage on those who wrongly entered american.com. In such case, I think its hard to say which one would value the URL more.

Not to mention the role of zero transaction cost assumption that the Coase theorem built upon. If American Airline does value the URL higher, it won’t be surprised if we found the American magazine is an URL holder, or the founder of American magazine is a good friend of a URL holder who owned the URL, or thousands of other stories about how transaction cost can be huge there to prevent American Airline to acquire that URL.

To sum up, the best examples that you try to find about the Coase theorem failing on the web, should in fact be the best examples of Coase theorem success on the web. Those examples give us an idea about how different between what we think of people’s evaluation on certain URLs and how they really evaluated those URLs. Or they give us an idea that how transaction cost could affect the virtual world!