Externalities: Week of 11/8/10

Superheroes fight crime and save lives. But by doing so they impose certain costs on people not directly involved. These are superhero externalities.

Eventually, these will be more current, but since I'm still catching up with a stack of comics from months ago, some of these will be a bit old.

As always, feel free to send in some of your favorites of the week and we'll post them with credit to your name. ecocomics dot blog at gmail dot com.

Amazing Spider-Man #643 by Mark Waid and Paul Azaceta

Marvel Comics, 2010

Zatanna #4 by Paul Dini and Chad Hardin

DC Comics, 2010

share on: del.icio.us digg reditt su

The American Way

The Amazing Spider-Man #638 by Joe Quesada, Paolo Rivera
Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21 by Jim Shooter, David Michelinie, and Paul Ryan
Marvel Comics, (2010)

Spectacle for profit. The American way.

share on: del.icio.us digg reditt su

Externalities: Week of 07/16/10

Superheroes fight crime and save lives. But by doing so they impose certain costs on people not directly involved. These are superhero externalities.

--

#1) Amazing Spider-Man #636-- Breaking the Web of Life.

Amazing Spider-Man #636 by Joe Kelly (w/Zeb Wells), Marco Checchetto,
Michael Lark and Stefano Gaudiano, Marvel Comics (2010)

The "Grim Hunt" continues as the Kravinoffs intensify their extermination of spiders. Unfortunately, according to Madame Web, these spiders play an important role in a delicate ecosystem (or something). By hunting them, the Kravinoffs have accidentally disturbed the balance of nature, forcing a bunch of angry rats, gorillas, birds, lions, and others to respond by killing more humans.

#2) Irredeemable #15 -- Accidental Earthquakes

Irredeemable #15 by Mark Waid and Diego Barreto, Boom! Stuidos (2010)

It's bad enough that the Plutonian destroyed Singapore, along with several other major cities in the world. Now in his fight against him, Cary has impetuously driven the Plutonian into a fault line, causing a 9.8 quake that's spread as far as 221 miles away to Phoenix. Incidentally, in the last issue the Paradigm (former eminent superhero team in this universe) specifically picked the Grand Canyon as the location of the fight to avoid causing damage and externalities such as this. Whoops.

#3) X-Force #28 -- Golden Gate Bridge

X-Force #28 by Craig Kyle, Christ Yost, and Mike Choi, Marvel Comics (2010)

When last we checked in on "Second Coming," the Golden Gate Bridge had been surrounded by a mysterious dome, engulfing the new mutant haven, Utopia, along with a good chunk of San Francisco. We later discovered that the dome was actually a portal, sending "mutant-slaying Nimrod sentinels" back from the future to, well, slaughter mutants. Now it seems the battle is over and the Nimrods are all but destroyed. Except...yeah.

--

Feel free to send us your favorite externalities of the week. We'll throw them up on next week's post and credit your name.

share on: del.icio.us digg reditt su

Ecocomics Recession Watch: Amazing Unemployed Spider-Man Edition

"Brother, Can You Spare a Crime?" in Amazing Spider-Man #628
by Mark Waid, Tom Peyer and Todd Nauck and Lee Weeks, Marvel Comics (2010)

When we last left Peter Parker, he was fired from his job at city hall. Now, we catch a glimpse of the unemployed life, as Peter experiences difficulty keeping the roof over his head. As he mentions, there was a time when he could just secure a freelance job taking photos for The Daily Bugle. But in the midst of this recession, it seems that such gigs are harder to obtain than usual. Not to mention The DB was recently destroyed!

One minor nitpick here: I don't know where he pulled the "one million other New Yorkers" statistic. As of March 2010, there were about 400,000 unemployed living in NYC. Statewide, the number of unemployed residents was about 831,800. Granted, if Peter was talking about the entire state (which I doubt), then his estimate of one million would have been closer. Even still, rounding up by over 150,000 is a big deal.

share on: del.icio.us digg reditt su

Externalities: Week of 4/26/10

Superheroes fight crime and save lives. But by doing so they impose certain costs on people not directly involved. These are superhero externalities.

Rather than do a separate "externalities" post for each disaster, I thought I might try sharing all of the best ones from the week in a single post.

Here we go:

Uncanny X-Men #523 by Matt Fraction and Terry Dodson, Marvel Comics (2010)

Cable and Hope are on the run from Bastion, a "super-sentinel from the future hellbent on exterminating all mutants." Bastion's goons have tracked the pair of heroes to a little motel and have begun to surround the joint.

The only way out? Heavy destruction of city and personal property, of course.

Wolverine: Weapon X #12 by Jason Aaron and Ron Garney, Marvel Comics (2010)

Hate waiting for the subway? Bet you would hate it even more if the A train was regularly delayed by underground superhuman battles.

Here we have Captain America attempting to escape an army of Deathloks, powerful Terminator-like cyborgs sent back in time from the future to eliminate the superheroes that would one day pose a threat to their reign. The chase leads Cap down into a subway station, where a group of innocent bystanders are trying to get home from work.

Oops.

Ultimate Avengers #6 by Mark Millar and Carlos Pacheco, Marvel Comics (2010)

Ultimate Captain America is not faring much better. Currently, he is using his ship to teleport around the world in search of the evil Red Skull. Too bad his flight skills are getting in the way.

This is, of course, a Mark Millar comic, so there is no shortage of pointless destruction. What's particularly fascinating here is how little Captain America seems to care about this blatant destruction and potential harm of others individuals.

Anything to get the job done, I suppose.

Amazing Spider-Man #628 by Roger Stern and Lee Weeks, Marvel Comics (2010)
Click to See More

Ah, a classic maneuver. During an airborne chase/battle, Spider-Man and Captain Universe crash through the window of a health club, damaging not only the window, but some expensive equipment. And they're not even members!

Interestingly enough, Spider-Man actually recognizes that innocent people might be getting hurt during the battle. Following this episode at the health club, he leads Captain Universe to an abandoned field so that the two could continue fighting, while only imposing minimal damage to third parties. It's nice to see that Spider-Man has a sense about these things, as opposed to, say, Ultimate Captain America.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 #34 by Brad Meltzer and Georges Jeanty,
Dark Horse Comics (2010)
Click to See More: WARNING: SLAYER/VAMPIRE LOVE-MAKING

I saved the best for last. If you're a Buffy fanatic and have not yet heard the identity of Twilight, then you should turn away from this post immediately because here comes the MASSIVE SPOILER. I'm serious.

OK, it's Angel. Buffy and Angel have been reunited at last. The first thing they do, obviously, is have some sex. Sounds innocent enough. Hell, they've done it before and the only result was an evil Angel.

Here's the problem. Buffy has recently been granted extra superhuman powers, which she was able to harness from recently fallen slayers. Meanwhile, Angel is, um, pretty powerful too. Apparently, when two especially powerful beings like Buffy and Angel get it on, the universe reacts. And not in a good way.

Remember the infamous love scene between Superman and Wonder Woman in Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Strikes Again? This is even worse. To balance out the enormous surge of power, the universe has to kill off a bunch of life or energy or something. Honestly, I'm not exactly clear yet what's going on. But Giles was not subtle in saying that Buffy's happiness is uncontroversially bad for the world. Tidal waves. Volcanic eruptions. The works.

That's right. Buffy and Angel want to be happy. The only cost is on the rest of the world. I'd say that's a pretty big externality.

share on: del.icio.us digg reditt su

Ecocomic Recession Watch: ASM Edition

Amazing Spider-Man #625 by Joe Kelly and Max Fiumara, Marvel Comics (2010)

It's been a while since we took a look at the effects of the economic recession in the Marvel Universe. The latest casualty? Peter Parker. It would appear that Pete has finally lost his job, despite previously surviving The DB's financial hardships (and later its literal destruction at the hands of Electro). Though he was quickly able to obtain new employment at City Hall through the ever-so-generous Mayor J. Jonah Jameson, Pete is finally out of work with not so much as a freelance gig to keep him above the federal poverty line.

OK, so this has very little to do with the recession. In actuality, some of Peter's latest (and quite frankly ethically dubious) actions have prompted Jameson to fire him in an very public manner. Now he joins the ranks of the other 9.7% of Americans forced to suffer through long unemployment lines and persistent insecurity.

And those guys don't have to buy web fluid.

Update: Some loyal readers pointed out that fact that Peter Parker shouldn't even be eligible to collect unemployment benefits, since he was clearly fired for gross misconduct (as opposed to being laid off or let go through no fault of his own). So what I meant to say was that he joins the ranks of the rest of the unemployed--not necessarily those waiting in unemployment lines.

share on: del.icio.us digg reditt su

Ecocomics Explains: Preferences and Indifference

Ecocomics Explains is a new feature of this blog. Each episode, we will discuss a different economics concept--ranging from more basic ones to more advanced and mathematically involved ones--and highlight some examples from comic books that reflect the ideas.

In our last lesson, we discussed the concepts of opportunity cost and budget constraints. Namely, we analyzed a situation where our friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man was had choice between spending an hour of free time fighting criminals on the street or attending Aunt May's rehearsal dinner and earning some brownie points with the family. We learned in order to be efficient, Spider-Man should have chosen a combination of fighting criminals and earning brownie points that would have allowed him to spend all 60 minutes of the hour doing one of the two activities.

Unfortunately, this doesn't exactly tell us what combination Spider-Man should or would have picked. It merely gave us the range of possibilities that Spider-Man could pick from. The bundle he actually chooses depends on his preferences and utility. We'll focus on utility in another post, but for now let's talk about Spider-Man's preferences.

The Amazing Spider Man #600 by Dan Slott and John Romita Jr. (2009)

Recall that the situation we are analyzing, depicted in The Amazing Spider-Man #600, is just one of many examples of the sort of choices Spider-Man has to face as a masked vigilante. Either Spider-Man surrenders to his obligation to fight crime and sacrifice personal time with his family, or works on his family/personal life and runs the risk of keeping some criminals on the street for the time being. Unfortunately, Spider-Man never explicitly states that he has an hour and never discusses just how happy his family will be to see him, so those are numbers we made up for simplicity.

Basically what we're going to do from here on out is build a consumer choice problem for Spider-Man from the ground-up. The first thing we need to realize is that Spider-Man's preference fit certain axioms, or rules.

First, Spider-Man's preferences are complete. Basically this means that Spider-Man can rank his preferences over any goods or combination of goods. Given putting criminals in jail and brownie points, for instance, Spider-Man can say that he'd rather bag one criminal than earn one brownie point, vice versa, or even be indifferent between the two. There is no way that they are noncomprable, however. When given a choice, he cannot just shrug and say "I just don't know!"

Second, his preferences are transitive. Say a third good enters the mix: watching TV. Now say that Spidey would rather spend time with family than fight criminals, but would rather fight criminals than watch TV . Well, then Spidey obviously also prefers spending time with family to watching TV. So if:

brownie > criminal and
criminal > TV
==> brownie>TV.

Finally, there's non-satiation. This means that there is never a maximum amount of a particular good that will fully satisfy Spider-Man. That is, there is never a point where Spider-Man would cease to derive enjoyment from putting criminals in jail. The more criminals he bags, the more enjoyment he sees.

There are a few more axioms and some more mathematically rigorous ways that we can define these three (which we'll go over eventually), but for now this is all we need to know. Consider the following graph:

Suppose Spider-Man is at point A of the graph. That means that he chooses to spend his 48 minutes hunting down 2 criminals and spending enough time with Aunt May to earn 4 brownie points. We know from last time that this combination is in Spidey's feasible set (even though it's not efficient).

Now let's say that Mephisto shows up and decides to offer Spider-Man a deal. He says that in exchange for handing back one of the two criminals he just captured, Mephisto will use his magic to alter the Spider-Man timeline (again) and have it seem as though Peter had been spending time with his family instead. Obviously Spider-Man would not make the deal if he would rather be hunting criminals. So Mephisto says that he'll give Spider-Man just enough brownie ponits to make up for the lost criminal, but no more. Spider-Man tells Mephisto that he'd need 3 brownie points to make him equally satisfied. Deal done (but for some reason no one seems to remember Spider-Man's identity anymore).

Post-deal, Spider-Man is at point B of the graph. He has taken out only one criminal, but earned an incredible 7 brownie points with his family! And he is equally happy. This means that Spider-Man is indifferent between points A and B. He derives the same enjoyment out of both combinations of actions.

Looking at the graph, we can now map out Spider-Man's indifference curve (labeled L2). This curve marks all the points, or combinations of brownie points and criminals, that Spider-Man is indifferent between. As you can see, Spider-Man would get the same satisfaction whether he takes out one criminal and earns 7 brownie points (point A) or whether he takes out 3 criminals and only earns 2 brownie point (point C).

You might be wondering why the curve is not a line, similar to the budget constraint. Well, this is due to a phenomenon known as diminishing marginal rate of substitution. In microeconomics, dMRS is another axiom that defines the convex shape of the indifference curves.

The marginal rate of substitution is basically the slope of the curve at various points. It's tell you what individuals are willing to give up of one good to get another. Note that this is different from an opportunity cost, which tells you how much an individual would HAVE to give up of one good to obtain another. At point B for instance, Spider-Man is willing to give up around 3 brownie points to get 1 more criminal (to get from B to A). That's a slope of 3 so his MRS at point B is about 3. At point C, Spider-Man is willing to give up about 1 brownie point to get one more criminal. That's a slope of 1, so his MRS at point C is 1.

The intuition behind assuming a diminishing marginal rate of substitution is not very difficult to grasp. When Spider-Man is at point A, he has lots and lots of brownie points but very few criminals. Catching another criminal is looking very attractive to him at this point, so he'd be willing to give up a little more to get one. At point C, however, Spider-Man has used up more of his hour to catch more of criminals, but in doing so has sacrificed much needed time with his family and is dangerously close to alienating himself with only 2 brownie points. He would be willing to sacrifice less brownie points at point C for another criminal.

We'll continue with this next time on Ecocomics Explains!

Questions and comments are welcome. Also, if anyone has any suggestions of economics topics they would like covered, please feel free to drop us a comment.

share on: del.icio.us digg reditt su

Lessons Learned from the Bennett Bailout

Earlier, we posted an in-depth discussion of the Marvel Universe's Bennett Bailout. To refresh your memory: former construction tycoon, current newspaper owner, and just ludicrously wealthy entrepreneur Dexter Bennett had somehow managed to persuade the United States federal government to award The DB, perhaps New York City's most prominent newspaper, a financial bailout.

Now that the bailout debacle is behind us (or so I think), it is important to look back and reflect on the lessons learned.

1) The public is fickle and easily swayed, but largely against bailouts.

Amazing Spider-Man #613 by Mark Waid and Paul Azaceta

Unlike the real world, the economy can be used to spread fear and paranoia in comic books. Not only that--it can be done by a supervillain.

Where's the actual public on this? Well in March 2009, a CBS News poll reported that 53% of the public were against giving more bailout to financial institutions, up from 44% only three months prior. I haven't seen any more recent polls about the bailouts, but it isn't a stretch to assume people have grown more disillusioned over the past year. A reaction such as the one in New York City is sudden, yet not really shocking (pun intended).

However, the overwhelmingly harsh response from NYC is interesting here. For one thing, citizens seem to be confusing Dexter Bennett for a Wall Street guy and seem to be conflating financial institutions and banks with news organizations. It's one thing to be hesitant in providing more money to institutions that individuals believe were the primary source of the recession, but it's quite another to be upset with the The DB. It actually seems like the citizens are rallying not so much against Wall Street, but against all rich people in general.

Of course, it's probably that New Yorkers are upset to see their taxpayer money wasted frivolously on organizations that they don't believe need to be bailed out. But then their problem isn't exactly with Dexter Bennett, but with the Federal Government and its policies.

2) The public is largely uninformed about, well, everything.

It's a sad day when people think that Spider-Man (who incidentally did not reveal his identity and is opposed to the Superhuman Registration Act of 2006) actually cuts a federal salary from the Avengers and pays no taxes on it. First of all, we know that Tony Stark pays a significant amount of taxes. Second, how would that even work? Would the Avengers hand him a check endorsed over to "Spider-Man," which he would then take and deposit into a Spider-Man bank account? And unless people actually think that Spider-Man is some sort of alien with no alter ego, he does pay taxes as Peter Parker.

3) Placing trust in Wall Street will only lead to destruction.

Amazing Spider-Man #614 by Mark Waid and Paul Azaceta

These are important life lessons. How many times have supervillains led the public against its superheroes using the prospect of a bleak political or economic future? I've said it before and I'll say it again. The best way to fight villainy is to educate citizens, especially in matters of the economy.

Oh yeah, and don't trust Wall Street.

share on: del.icio.us digg reditt su

The Bennett Bailout

Amazing Spider-Man #612 by Mark Waid and Paul Azaceta (2009)

The latest tale in Spider-Man's never-ending struggle demonstrates just how powerful the economy is as both an instigator of public discontent and as a motivation for supervillains. If we think about it, many supervillains form because they are either down on their luck or run into some sort of trouble with their finances. As Ezra Klein noted, the Sandman turned to a life of crime in Spider-Man 3 because he was unable to afford medical treatment for his daughter. Most ordinary thugs you see in comics (and a fairly large amount of brand-name villains too) commit crimes that are financially motivated. Even the Joker, depending on your interpretation has origins stemming from financial peril. A struggling comedian trying to support his family, he pulls a heist at a chemical plant to make some cash and...well, you know the rest.

Obviously the state of the economy is important here. We've discussed before how it's possible that an economic recession could lead to more crime. This applies mostly to your orindary street-thug types (remember this guy?), but if left unchecked we know that these low-tier criminals could escalate to be formidable opponents.

But now to top it off, we have a new way that the economy can affect the state of superheroics: public opinion.

Dexter Bennett, former construction tycoon turned newspaper owner, has just engineered the first official federal government bailout of the newspaper industry (specifically, his own newspaper The DB). If you think that this is ludicrous, recall that back in September President Obama hinted at doing something like this. To be fair, Obama was mainly looking at proposals to give extra tax breaks to struggling newspapers if they agreed to restructure as nonprofits. Waid doesn't go into much detail in Amazing Spider-Man, but it looks like what's happening is that the feds are just throwing money at The DB with no expectation of restructuring, public ownership, or...anything. This sort of makes you think about what the federal government is getting out of keeping The DB alive. Or how exactly Bennett pulled it off in the first place.

However, this is all besides the point. Far more interesting is the unintended result of this "Bennett Bailout." Remember the classic Spidey villain, Electro? The one who can...electro-ize stuff? The one we haven't seen in a while? I wonder how he can the federal government's actions to his advantage:

You see, NYC isn't exactly happy with the Bennett Bailout. Citizens feel that their taxpayers' money is being wasted to support greedy, capitalist fat cats sitting in their mansions as they suck the life out of the middle class. If anyone has read the supervillain instruction manual, they know that praying on the fears of the public is by far the easiest way to attack a superhero. And what do people fear more than anything else in the world right now? It's not a crazy former villain who shoots electricity out of his eyes. It's Wall Street.

Interestingly, this is precisely what J. Jonah Jameson has been trying to accomplish for years. By writing scathing critiques of the webcrawler in the former Daily Bugle, he was trying to instill a permanent sense of fear. He argued that Spider-Man increased crime. He argued that Spider-Man was a danger to society. He tried everything and only marginally impacted the public's perception of Spider-Man.

In one day, Electro managed to change all of that. He managed to completely change his own reputation from being a terrorist to being a servant of the labor force. He also managed to persuade the public that Spider-Man was part of the capitalist conspiracy. AND he did it without any intention of involving Spider-Man at all! Turns out Electro had lost the fortune he had in various investments when the economy went sour. He's out primarily for personal gain.

What's the difference between Electro and Jameson? Jameson never thought to use the great instigator of fear. The...economy!


The lesson here is that if superheroes want to be thorough, they better start getting their PhDs and involving themselves in public policy.

share on: del.icio.us digg reditt su

Ecocomics Explains: Opportunity Cost

Ecocomics Explains is a new recurring feature of this blog. Each week, we will discuss a different economics concept--ranging from more basic ones to more advanced and mathematically involved ones--and highlight some examples from comic books that reflect the ideas. We will also include a rating system in each post to show the difficulty level of the concepts. 1 Greenspan refers to a very basic concept, 2 Greenspans refers to a more intermediate concept and 3 Greenspans refers to an advanced concept.

(1 Greenspan)




Opportunity cost is a fairly basic economics concept. Anyone who has taken any introductory microeconomics course certainly knows about it. It is usually one of the first topics introduced in class. You're probably familiar with a number of classic examples, such as having a choice between hamburgers and pizza or guns and butter. Those of you who have never taken economics before are still likely familiar with the intuition behind it, but maybe not know the terminology.

Opportunity cost stems from the fact that resources are scarce. In fact, the entire field of economics is basically the study of how individuals and societies allocate scarce resources. When a society chooses to place greater emphasis on the production of one good, then production of another good necessarily has to decrease. Similarly, consumers who have a fixed income have to make choices between which goods to buy. Purchasing more of one means purchasing less of another. The opportunity cost of a good, then, is what an individual, firm or society gives up in order to have one particular good. It is the value of the highest valued foregone alternative (this is the definition used in the third edition of Microeconomics Michael L. Katz).

This doesn't just apply to production and consumption of goods, however. It embodies the idea of tradeoffs, which is something that we all experience on a daily basis. And it happens in comic books all the time too!

To see how this works, let's consider the case of Spider-Man. Spidey is a fascinating study because basically the entire point of his ongoing series is to highlight his struggle to maintain a balance between his personal life and his obligations as a superhero. Every day for Spider-Man is an exercise in opportunity costs.

The Amazing Spider Man #600 by Dan Slott and John Romita Jr. (2009)

See here how Peter Parker is making a choice between earning some more money to support his crime-fighting double life and attending Aunt May's rehearsal dinner (she was recently married to J. Jonah Jameson senior). Let's look at this example in a bit more detail, but spice it up a bit. Suppose that Peter has 60 minutes (1 hour) of free time. In that free time, he can either go out and fight some thugs on the street or he can choose to attend Aunt May's rehearsal dinner and spend time with his family. Also, let's say that it takes Spider-Man 12 minutes to take down an ordinary street thug and that it takes 6 minutes with his family to earn him a "brownie point." This means that Spider-Man has a production equation of the form:

12x + 6y = 60

where x is the number of criminals Spider-Man takes down and y is the number of brownie points he earns at the May residence. Given this equation, if Spidey decides to take down 3 thugs (x=3), then we have:

12(3) + 6y = 60
36 + 6y = 60
6y = 24
y = 4

Thus, if Spider-Man spent his hour taking down 3 thugs, he could have also had the time to earn 4 brownie points.

This can be represented graphically as follows:

Note: Not Drawn to Scale. Not drawn particularly well either. By now you've noticed, I prefer drawing my graphs in MS Paint. Lost art, really.

In the graph above, line "l" represents Spider-Man's "budget constraint." This is just a visual representation of the bundles of goods that our webcrawler can "afford" with his given "income." In this case, income refers to Spider-Man's allotted time schedule, the goods are brownie points and criminals put in jail, and costs refers to time in minutes. Any point on the graph beneath line "l" is in Spider-Man's "feasible set." This is the set of all combinations of criminals and brownie points that Spider-Man can possibly afford in his hour of free time. Any point that is in the pink shaded area of the graph is feasible.

Take our example above. If Spider-Man chooses to fight 3 thugs, which would take 36 minutes, he could then only earn 4 brownie points. This is reflected as point A on the graph. Notice that point A is exactly on the budget line. Hence, Spider-Man is using all of his time towards one of the two goods. This is an efficient use of his time. Suppose instead that Spider-Man decided to fight 2 criminals and earn 3 brownie points (point B of the graph). In minutes, the bundle would cost:

12(2) + 6(3) = 24 + 18 = 42 minutes.

Point B, although being in the feasible set, is not efficient. The reason is that Spider-Man is only using 42 minutes of his time, which means he has 18 minutes left over that are not being devoted to one of the two goods that exists in this universe. With that 18 minutes, he could be fighting more criminals or earning more brownie points. But he isn't.

Now consider point C of the graph. At this point, Spider-Man fights 4 thugs and earns 5 brownie points. In minutes, this bundle would cost:

12(4) + 6(5) = 48 + 30 = 78 minutes.

Obviously, Spider-Man only has 60 minutes and therefore cannot purchase this bundle of goods. Point C is therefore not feasible.

If Spidey chose not to attend Aunt May's dinner at all, but instead to spend the entire hour fighting crime, he would be able to bring down a maximum of 5 street thugs in the 60 minutes. If he chose to sacrifice his hero duties for an hour and spend its entirety with the family, he would be able to earn a maximum of 10 brownie points. These points are the x and y intercepts of the graph and are the endpoints of the budget constraint.

So, where is Spider-Man's opportunity cost in this graph? It's actually the slope of the budget line! Notice that the slope is -2. This represents the opportunity cost of one good in terms of the other. So, the opportunity cost of one criminal is 2 brownie points. To put one more criminal to justice, Spider-Man would have to sacrifice 2 brownie points that he would have otherwise gained by being with his family. Conversely, to gain two more brownie points, Spider-Man would have to sacrifice fighting 1 criminal.

Those are the basics of opportunity cost in a nutshell. I even threw in a little bit of linear budget constraints. Once we discuss utility maximization, we can bring in other factors. For example, we all know that Spider-Man suffers from immense guilt over the death of Uncle Ben and would likely derive more utility from fighting a criminal than maintaining his personal life. We can factor all (or most) of this in to an optimization problem. But this is a post for another time.

share on: del.icio.us digg reditt su

The Costs of Secret Identities

Amazing Spider-Man #610 by Marc Guggenheim, Marco Checchetto, Luke Ross and Rick Magyar (2009)

I think Spidey might be underestimating here. I'm no expert in the cost of drywall, but my feeling is that Aunt May's house isn't really that small and this explosion looks like it took out more than just the living room. Not to mention the damage to other household items, glass (Screwball crashed in through the window), ceiling, etc. I would guess that drywall itself would cost anywhere from $6,000 - $8,000. But this is admittedly an unscientific prediction.

It looks like Spider-Man would make a good spokesperson for a Mastercard commercial (that is, in addition to being a good spokesperson for health care reform). Though, I highly doubt that his secret identity is priceless. However, we do learn something valuable from this panel. Since Spidey is giving up the $3,000 for the drywall and the $8,000 for the costs of labor in order to maintain his secret identity, we know that his secret identity is worth at least $11,000 to him. But is there an upper bound to this cost or would Spider-Man really be willing to give up any amount in order to keep his secret?

Opportunity cost, Spider-Man. Opportunity cost.

The really interesting question to ask here is that if there is a cost, then what would it be? That is, what would Spider-Man be willing to pay to retain his secret identity (or what would he be willing to be paid to divulge it)? This does not necessarily have to be a monetary exchange. Suppose the Green Goblin threatened to kill Mary Jane and Aunt May unless Spider-Man revealed his secret identity. Would he do it to ensure the safety of his two most beloved people in the world? If so, then his secret identity would be worth no more than the combined value of their lives.

It's also fun to note the distinction between Batman and Spider-Man. Now, obviously interpretations of the characters vary by creative team so there is no definitive course of action that either would take given a particular situation. Nevertheless, there are two recent examples where Batman and Spider-Man have been presented the option of revealing their secret identities in order to save a bunch of lives.

For Spidey, it was in Invincible Iron Man #7 by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca. This issue took place just before "World's Most Wanted," which saw Tony Stark on the run from Norman Osborn's "Dark Reign." In the issue, Stark incessantly tries to convince Spider-Man to register with the government under the 2006 Superhuman Registration Act. He claims by doing so, Spider-Man would ultimately be able to save hundreds of more lives as he would have the full support of the government behind him. Spider-Man persistently refuses, however, noting that he would put his closest friends and family in danger--a risk he would not take even for the sake of the lives of many (he didn't say this explicitly, but heavily implied it).

Batman experienced a similar dilemma in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight. In the movie, the Joker threatens to continue terrorizing citizens of Gotham City unless Batman reveal his secret identity to the public. What's interesting here is that, unlike Spider-Man, Batman makes the choice of saving the lives until Harvey Dent interrupts his decision.

In Spider-Man's example, his secret identity is worth more than the cost of the many lives Iron Man claims he would have been able to save. In Batman's example, it was not worth the cost.

There is also the question of utilitarianism vs. deontologism (saving more lives vs. the rightness of the act). But this will be a post for another day. For more on this in the context of Batman, read Mark White's Batman and Philosophy book.

Any guesses on what would be the most that Spider-Man would be willing to pay to remain hidden from the public?

share on: del.icio.us digg reditt su

Job Creation: Project Super-Runway

Amazing Spider Man #605 by Fred Van Lente and Luke Ross (2009)

Remember when we wrote about consulting and publicity for supervillains? We had mentioned just how important a villain's costume design is to his or her overall success. A villain is only as good as the evilness he is able to project upon the public. Within the context of the Batman universe, for instance, the successful villains include Joker, Two-Face, Scarecrow, Poison Ivy, etc. All have thematically fitting and terrifying costumes that unequivocally demonstrate that these are guys you do not want to mess with. However, guys like the Calendar Man...well, not so much.



It's not that the Calendar Man doesn't have potential as a villain. Here is someone who commits gruesome murders corresponding to particular dates and holidays. Think about that. It sounds pretty lame, but it actually is quite chilling. It spreads panic around every major holiday, thus making something that was once enjoyable no longer a cause for celebration. And though it might eliminate the element of surprise, it actually creates a certain anxiety and paranoia that lasts year-round.

Still, no one is at all afraid of the Calendar Man. Why? Well, look at him. Apart from the dates, I used to dress in a similar way when I used to wander around the woods in my neighborhood and pretend to be an explorer.

And analogous to how supervillains need to look the part, the more respectable superheroes are the ones that have the most superheroic costumes too. This actually ends up being a problem for many of them. Not everyone as Martha Kent to sew costumes or a technical-savvy butler like Alfred to help out with wardrobe. Up-and-coming superheroes, in particular, who are trying to establish themselves in a world dominated by the classic ones (see the Super Young Team from Final Crisis: Dance for an example) have to worry a lot about their appearances. They need to establish a sense of security, confidence and trust. Usually, they won't achieve this desired effect with a costume quickly hobbled together using household towels and bedsheets. What's more is that these heroes usually don't have the time to work on costumes since they're out fighting crime all day.

That is why ideas like the one portrayed in last week's issue of Amazing Spider-Man are completely reasonable if not good. Big name fashion designers would start developing lines exclusively for newer heroes. Private self-employed designers would start customizing costumes for specific superheroes with whom they have contracts. And, of course, television shows flaunting this very profession would become extremely popular in comic book universes.

Television shows like "Sewn Up," in particular, might actually have a positive effect on the community. First, it encourages competition among the superhero fashion industry, which in turn breeds more production of clever and effective superhero costumes. Second, these shows would serve not only to promote the designers and entertain viewers, but also to increase awareness about the heroes (I think the models of Project Runway actually have their own show now). If you randomly heard about someone named "Most Excellent Superbat," a native of Japan whose power is "being rich," you'd likely think the worst However, if you saw him on "Sewn Up," you might suddenly find him more legitimate and trustworthy.. Of course, whether this trust is warranted is another question.

It is not such a stretch to imagine a superhero hiring a fashion designer. After all, if supervillains can hire a real estate agent to sell them abandoned warehouses and carnivals for a fee, why would heroes not be able to take advantage of the fashion trade? The only problem I can foresee is that it won't be cheap. Batman can afford a revamp to his costume, but Spider-Man can't. Perhaps this would be a market better suited to villains like the Calendar Man, who either make their money throug illegitimate means or just turn back on deals and don't pay altogether. As Spider-Man himself put it...

share on: del.icio.us digg reditt su

Spider-Man Makes Another Bad Advertising Choice

We know that Peter Parker is struggling with money. We also know that he's tried advertising before, unsuccessfully. Now, in an effort to alleviate some dire circumstances without tarnishing his reputation in the United States, it appears as though Spidey has joined the ranks of celebrities such as Tommy Lee Jones by lending his name for ads in Asia. Too bad he couldn't escape the blogosphere. Via Comic Mix, the Beat, and failblog here is Spider-Man requesting your presence at a water park...



There has been some mystery as to the meaning behind this ad. Here's my guess: Spider-Man is actually the villain. Using more powerful webbing that emanates from his behind, he's trying to steal the water slides directly from the park and take it back to the United States. The angry patron, however, won't have it.

If you thought the Spidey-mobile was bad, this is infinitely worse. If Peter's so desperate for money and is willing to debase himself, why not go back into the wrestling gig? At the very least, someone should get him a good publicist.

Readers, your thoughts are needed!!

share on: del.icio.us digg reditt su

Spideyconomics 101: Basic Principles

Externalities...

The Amazing Spider-Man #600 by Various (2009)

Moral hazard...


Decisions under Uncertainty...

share on: del.icio.us digg reditt su

J. Jonah Jameson and the New York City Economy

Amazing Spider-Man #602 by Fred Van Lente and Barry Kitson (2009)

It's been a little while since we checked in with J. Jonah Jameson. When last we discussed his transition into politics, we knew that Jameson had dedicated most of his government funds towards establishing an anti-Spidey squad. Then he had concocted a desperate scheme to encourage investment in the New York State economy by sponsoring bikini shows.

How have these efforts fared, economically? Surprise: not too well. As Ms. Glory Grant so passionately points out in the panels above, despite JJJ's attempts, the New York State economy remains in a bleak state, with unemployment creeping towards the double digits, education quality dipping, and an increase in homelessness. In real-New York, conditions are, unfortunately, similar. In May, the city's unemployment rate hit 9%, representing about 361,000 without jobs, the highest since 1993. As far as statewide numbers go, the most recent report from the Division of the Budget reported that since August 2008, 236,000 have lost their jobs. In addition, more employment declines are projected for 2010 and the state unemployment rate is expected to hit 9.1% in the first quarter of next year.

Homelessness is a harder statistic to report accurately. However, the NYC Department of Homless Services does take a daily shelter census--the most recent reporting about 36,000 individuals in the system. So, while Grant's assertion that they can almost take over the state of Rhode Island is probably inaccurate (Rhode Island's population is over 1 million according to the Census Bureau), it is still a large number. In fact, historical graphs from the DHS show that it has increased since 2006. I mean, maybe if the population of Rhode Island is particularly wussy...

Perhaps one reason that education, homelessness, and other facets of the economy are doing particularly poorly in Jameson's New York is that he has drastically cut back on critical government programs and services, likely including funding for Medicaid and education. According to Peter Parker, he has also cut transportation services--including many of New York's major bus routes--which has put many people out of work and exacerbated the unemployment statistics. Instead, Jameson has decided to take a strict anti-terrorist stance and invest most government funds into public safety (though this is just a guise to root out the Spider-Man influence).

Of course, we should also scrutinize Glory's diatribe to Peter about supporting the mayor and her duty to "make Jameson look good." However, it looks like her efforts to accomplish this have likewise been unsuccessful:


Polls show that the New York population is impressed with Jameson's ability to "balance the budget," yet disappointed by his obdurate, anti-terrorist stance.

I don't buy it. The Division of the Budget estimates a deficit of $2.1 billion for 2009 - 2010, only to grow to $4.6 billion in 2010-2011. If Jameson managed to "save enough to balance the budget," this means that he would have had to drastically cut down on services. This is especially true considering the amount he spends on anti-terror units, crime prevention, and bikini shows.

And people like their services in New York. A Quinnipiac poll in March 2009 revealed that to balance the budget, 52% of respondents would have favored raising taxes, while only 37% would have preferred to cut services. This implies that, despite the economy being the number one important issue for 52% of New Yorkers, cutting services would likely drag down Jameson's approval ratings--moreso than continuing to fund social programs and increasing taxes. In fact, the 2nd most important issue next to the economy was education, which we know Jameson isn't the biggest supporter of. That and I think it's likely that when people note the economy as a significant issue, they're not necesssarily referring to balancing the budget.

According to a recent poll, real-Mayor Michael Bloomberg's approval ratings have dropped to 63% (i.e. 63% of respondents said that they approve of the way Bloomberg is handling his responsibilities), which is down from 66% is June and from a high of 75% in October 2008. And he did not nearly cut as much as Jameson did. How do you think Jameson's approval ratings would fare in comparison?

Glory is right, however, when she declares that people are upset over Jameson's use of anti-Spider squads. The same March poll revelaed that only 5% fo New Yorkers cited crime as their most important issue.

So, once again, Jameson's tenure as mayor of New York is not going so well. Or at least it shouldn't be. The economy is still in the tank and public approval ratings should be down. Maybe in some sort of fantasy world where superheroes fly around battling aliens that mimick human form, Jameson would be doing better. But not here.

share on: del.icio.us digg reditt su

Ecocomic Recession Watch: Spider-Man Edition (Again)

In this week's Amazing Spider-Man, Mark Waid peppers the issue with discussions of the economic downturn and its effects on the people in Peter Parker's life. First, Peter tries to visit Harry Osborn, only to be told...

The Amazing Spider-Man #601 by Mark Waid and Mario Alberti (2009)

Next, we have Peter visiting The DB. Except things are not really going so well in the newspaper industry either (which we covered here)...

And finally...


Now, the reader is aware that the first panel is not exactly true. Actually, Harry's move involved a recent confrontation with his father, Norman Osborn, aka the Green Goblin. Even still, something I was always curious about was whether the recession had an impact on moving or trucking companies. Harry is just one example of the many individuals who had been forced to abandon their houses or apartments for more modest accommodations. If there is a surge in moving, would this also be accompanies by an accretion in profits for moving companies? On the other hand, businesses have been cutting on the costs for transportation of materials, which would abate trucking profits. Anybody know of any data on the utilization of movers?

The fact that Glory Grant and Betty Brant now have to room together is also reflective of the state of the economy. Here are two articles on people being forced to find roommates to contribute towards living expenses during the recession. In fact, a spokeswoman for Craigslist had mentioned in March that roommate listings on the website had increased by 65% over the last year. Listings increased 75% in Las Vegas alone.

By the way, does anybody know how I might be able to use Google Maps to discover an individual's new address? That seems like a pretty powerful feature that bellhop is referring to.

share on: del.icio.us digg reditt su

Superhero Franchising

Name recognition is a powerful thing. That's the whole reason why franchising is such a successful process. Having the powerful security provided by a popular brand brings with it a built-in customer base and an inherent level of trust in the product you provide.

Even superheroes can be seen involved with franchising. Batman has an entire family of heroes associated with him (Batgirl, Batwoman, Nightwing, Robin, Huntress, the International Club of Heroes, Spoiler, Red Robin, Ace the Bat-Hound, etc.). The same is true for Captain America (U.S. Agent, Bucky, Nomad, Super Patriot, The Spirit of '76), Spider-Man (Spider-Woman, the Steel Spider, The Scarlet Spider), Iron Man (War Machine, Rescue) and Superman (Supergirl, Superboy, Steel, and Krypto the Superdog).

But the difference is that instead of providing tasty burgers as a franchise service (ala Red Robin or Five Guys and to a lesser extent Burger King), hero franchises provide justice and evil thwarting. But the security provided by brand recognition still exists. If you needed to choose a hero for a good thwart, wouldn't you choose Batwoman over The Question if you had no other information besides their names? The boost Batwoman receives through her nominal association with Batman makes her seem like a better choice. And though heroes like Nightwing and Robin don't have the name recognition aspect of superhero franchising, their established connection with an effective and prominent hero makes them more desirable thwarters as well.

For a burgeoning superhero, it seems that aligning yourself with a currently existing hero can only help to build your recognition and your acclaim. But what incentive does the hero whose name is being lent out have? Does Batman gain anything from lending parts of his persona to Batgirl? Does Iron Man benefit by his association with War Machine? In many cases (namely with War Machine) the hero's image can be tarnished by the individuals in his/her franchise. If a violent pretender tries to usurp your role (like the 3 evil Batmen from Grant Morrison's Batman run & Nite-Wing messing with Nightwing), doesn't that damage a hero's perception with the public?

Perhaps that's why superheroes should turn unofficial heroic franchises into official ones. The current system allows pretenders to tack "Bat" or "Spider" onto their names without any official approval from the initial steadfast and popular hero. But if the most popular heroes organize themselves and only allow heroes they approve to use their names, the system could be streamlined and monitored. This means that a young hero seeking to use the name of, oh I don't know, Most Excellent Superbat would need to contact the hero he was franchising the name from and seek approval. Then pending approval, the new crimefighter could buy all his equipment and receive training from the originator of the title. This would ensure a baseline level of quality and uniformity for the new hero's heroic activities.

It just makes good sense.

In some cases...

share on: del.icio.us digg reditt su

A Fruitful Partnership?

The Amazing Spider-Man #583 by Zeb Wells and Todd Nauck (2008)
The Amazing Spider-Man #600 by Various (2009)

Perhaps Obama should be a little more cautious in choosing his allies. After all, if he's planning on implementing comprehensive health reform, he might lose a considerable amount of public support if Spider-Man is running around, accusing people of being hippies and destroying the nation's values. And if Spidey's opinions on policy are this easily manipulated, he would not make a great representative for Obama anyway.

Actually looking at the cover for The Amazing Spider-Man #583 makes me think that Spider-Man is not so much a partner of Obama as he is a spy. Hiding in the background and taking photos is not conducive to trust. Plus it seems that all he cares about is fame and having his face on the dollar bill.

share on: del.icio.us digg reditt su

Should Spider-Man Advertise More?

Update 08/04/2009: Correcting an error that I had written below: the co-author of this study is C. Robert Clark of the Institute of Applied Economics in Montreal, not Robert C. Clark of Harvard University. Incidentally, one of the co-authors of the paper is from Harvard University. Tricky!

"Fight at the Museum" in Amazing Spider-Man #600 by Zeb Wells and Derec Donovan

I've been writing a lot recently about Spider-Man. The reason is that the group of writers who put out The Amazing Spider-Man have recently released a gigantic sized issue, which contains several stories, almost all of which touch upon Peter Parker's struggle to keep himself afloat in the economy.

In one story, Peter finds himself in a museum staring at, much to his dismay, a model of a "Spider-Mobile" that an advertising agency had helped him design in order to better brand his name. It sound silly, but it is understandable why Spidey would want to better market his image. With J. Jonah Jameson previously running The Daily Bugle, one of the most prominent newspapers in New York City, and now with him as Mayor, Spider-Man's popularity ebbs and flows. He wants to take every opportunity that he can in order to convince the public that he is a champion rather than a vigilante menace. One way of achieving this is through appropriate advertising.

Here's the problem: turns out that the Spider-mobile might have been ill-conceived. It seems as though rather than garnering public support, it may have had the adverse effect of eliciting public ridicule. In the museum, Peter is tormented as he watches a group of kids laughing at the automobile rather than praising it and, by extension, supporting Spider-Man himself.

However, Spider-Man shouldn't fret too much. In actuality, it is not likely that advertising and branding would have really altered public perception of the web-crawler. A recent study (not sure if there is an ungated version) by Robert C. Clark of Harvard University examined a panel data set of advertising expenditures for over 300 brands in order to determine the effect on both brand awareness and perceived quality. The overall results suggest that advertising expenditures have a significant effect on awareness but no significant effect on perceived quality.

There does, however, seem to be a noted distinction once measuring the effects for different categories of products. For example, expenditures for the fast food industry had a marginal effect of 0.0144 on brand awareness and a marginal effect of 0.000727 on perceived quality (which is pretty large compared to the rest of the categories).

The author does admit to some limitations. For instance, the relationship between expenditures, brand awareness and perceived quality is only tested for the short-run. A larger panel might reveal some more significant results, particularly for quality (although a six-year panel is pretty long as far as short-run goes).

Similar theories have been argued with regard to politicians and campaign finances. Steve Levitt and Stephen Dubner of Freakonomics, for example, have found no significant relationship between campaign spending and electoral outcomes.

In general, I think this means that Spider-Man should not worry too much about what a particular group of children think about his corny Spidey-Mobile. As he is not selling fast food or consumer electronics, it is unlikely to have a significant effect on the public's perception of him as a hero. In fact, maybe Spider-Man should focus more on heroics and less on advertising, as I doubt it would even serve much to increase his awareness. Jameson is pretty much doing that job for him.

Really, advertising and branding probably works best for new heroes trying to break into the business, such as the Super Young Team. As they are up-and-coming, they need significant brand awareness to compete in the market. Hence, the fact that they engage in these marketing ventures (using twitter, associating themselves with particular products, etc.), could actually have a positive effect for their recognition.

For Spider-Man, however, just get out there and keep beating up Doc Ock. As the saying goes, there is no bad publicity.

share on: del.icio.us digg reditt su

Ecocomic Recession Watch: Spider Man Edition

The Amazing Spider Man #600 by Dan Slott and John Romita Jr. (2009)

Peter Parker is having more difficulty putting food on the table these days than usual. Especially as the newspaper industry is struggling during the recession, The Front Line is having more trouble paying its freelancer writers and photographers. Peter is in such debt, in fact, coupled with the loss of his roommate in a recent storyline, that he is at risk of missing Aunt May's rehearsal dinner and other major events in his personal life. Mind you, this is not anything new. But what's new is that he's missing it for his day job and not his crime fighting endeavors as Spider-Man. After all, as he notes, "web fluid doesn't grow on trees."

Meanwhile, J. Jonah Jameson is having troubles of his own as he struggles to infuse some funds into the stalled New York State economy, while trying to fend off an attack by Doctor Octopus and be circumspect about the state budget (despite the fact that he appropriated a significant amount of it towards an anti-Spider-Man task force).

It actually surprises me that the Governor has not called them in already. Is he unaware of this impending attack that is being broadcast on all television and radio stations, as well as over the internet? But yes, Jameson, the National Guard does eat up state funds as well as federal funds. In fact, in 2008, New York State funded about $43.2 million on its National Guard. I would say that's a lot of money to be spent when you could just call in Spider-Man. Another alternative is to call in New York's state defense force, the New York Guard, which are comprised primarily of volunteers. Of course, this might lead to concerns regarding whether there would be enough forces to take on Doctor Octopus and whether these volunteers have the appropriate incentives to perform adequately.

So what's Jameson's grand money-making plan? In typical fashion, it's misguided and irresponsible...

Can anyone actually explain the logic of this to me? How would girls in bikinis help the NYS economy? The reporter suggests that fashion retailers might start purchasing, but really? That's it? This is not rhetorical. I'm actually asking the readers for help in understanding Jameson's new plan!

share on: del.icio.us digg reditt su