{"269751":{"#nid":"269751","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Laband Op-Ed Featured in Wall Street Journal","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAn Economics Lesson at the Baggage Carousel: Government-regulated taxis weren\u0027t around in a snowstorm. Then came a man with a car and price.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis is a simple lesson in free-market economics, provided courtesy of the harsh winter weather of recent days in the eastern half of the U.S. Coincidentally, the annual meetings of the American Economic Association were scheduled to take place in Philadelphia, from Jan. 3-6. My friend and colleague, Haizheng Li, flew in to Philadelphia late in the evening of Thursday, Jan. 2, landing around 10:45. As he later told me, by then it was snowing heavily. Because of backed-up air traffic, the pilot was not able to park at their arrival gate for 40 minutes. After de-planing, Haizheng waited for another 40 minutes to retrieve his luggage.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe AEA conference is huge, with several thousand attendees. Under ordinary circumstances, the participating conference hotels are constantly running shuttles to and from the airport to pick up guests. Taxis are running nonstop. Not on this night.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhile waiting to collect his luggage, Haizheng learned from a colleague that the hotel shuttle service was taking two hours or longer. Worried, he went out to the taxi line even before getting his luggage. Snow was falling, the line of prospective customers waiting for taxis was long\u2014and there were no taxis in sight. It was near midnight. The taxi staff said it was unlikely any cabs would be coming in such bad weather.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHaizheng and a number of other passengers were facing the grim prospect of an uncomfortable night at the airport. The food vendors were all closed. Haizheng was tired and hungry\u2014and he was scheduled to make a presentation at 8 the next morning.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EUnexpectedly, out of the night came a savior. A man walked through baggage claim asking whether any of the recently arrived passengers needed transportation to one of the downtown hotels. Haizheng didn\u0027t ask what the ride might cost, he just said yes. As it turned out, the man took six stranded passengers, plus luggage, to their hotels for $25 each.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENo doubt in doing so he broke at least one, probably several, laws regarding passenger transport that are designed to prop up the local taxi cartel. Yet this man\u0027s action dramatically improved the lives of six individuals, each of whom undoubtedly would have been willing to pay much more than $25 to get from the airport to their respective hotels. Haizheng told me he would have paid \u003Cem\u003Ea lot\u003C\/em\u003E more.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThere are those who argue that this unscrupulous individual took \u0022unfair\u0022 advantage of these travelers in distress by charging them at all. Critics would say that he was a heartless \u0022price-gouger.\u0022 Really? The fact is, no one was offering to provide private transport for the stranded passengers at no charge. For that matter, the real price-gougers\u2014government-regulated taxi companies\u2014were nowhere in evidence.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI have no way of knowing how much it inconvenienced this man to find and transport half a dozen extremely stressed-out and grateful strangers in the wee hours of a bitterly cold, snowy winter night. He surely was inconvenienced. But the fact that his offer was made and followed through on suggests that he was compensated fully for his inconvenience and therefore happy to have been of service to his fellow man.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo that mystery driver: I applaud you. Your entrepreneurial spirit and actions embody everything that is beneficial about voluntary exchange among consenting adults. If you broke any laws, well, such laws benefit narrow special-interest groups and reduce social welfare. Your actions unambiguously enhanced social welfare.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOverzealous regulators and the cynical politicians who enable them are the ones who deserve scorn, not good Samaritans like you. I only hope that if I\u0027m ever stuck at an airport in a winter storm, you or someone like you will come to the rescue.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.iac.gatech.edu\/faculty-and-staff\/faculty\/bio\/laband\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EDavid Laband\u003C\/a\u003E, professor and chair in the \u003Cstrong\u003ESchool of Economics\u003C\/strong\u003E, researches and teaches a wide range of topics related to economics and policy.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAn Economics Lesson at the Baggage Carousel: Government-regulated taxis weren\u0027t around in a snowstorm. Then came a man with a car and price.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27889","created_gmt":"2014-01-21 13:21:46","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:15:44","author":"Beth Godfrey","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-01-21T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-01-21T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"269811":{"id":"269811","type":"image","title":"Baggage Claim","body":null,"created":"1449244077","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:47:57","changed":"1475894959","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:49:19","alt":"Baggage Claim","file":{"fid":"198604","name":"istock_000013391246small.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/istock_000013391246small_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/istock_000013391246small_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":496862,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/istock_000013391246small_0.jpg?itok=Qo7xv1oW"}}},"media_ids":["269811"],"groups":[{"id":"1281","name":"Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts"}],"categories":[{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"}],"keywords":[{"id":"12542","name":"op-ed"},{"id":"3562","name":"Wall Street Journal"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}