Nov. 8, Michael Davis, economics professor at the Cox School of Business, SMU Dallas, for a piece framing the precarious position the new British prime minister faces in trying to keep good relations with the U.S., Ireland and Northern Ireland. Published in Inside Sources under the heading Rishi Sunak’s Take on the Economy, Brexit and Ireland Could Have Profound Effect on U.S. Banking and Commerce: https://tinyurl.com/bdb2xbv2
When I was a teenager my parents warned me that bad things happen at 2 a.m. They were right.
This Sunday morning at 2 a.m., we’re all supposed to set our clocks back by one hour.
That’s probably not the bad thing Mom and Dad were worried about, but it is definitely a bad thing. Changing our clocks twice a year was sold as a way to save energy, but it doesn’t seem to make much difference. It is, however, bad for our health — leading to seasonal spikes in cardiac events and accidents. Not surprisingly most people hate it.
By Michael L. Davis
When I was a teenager my parents warned me that bad things happen at 2 a.m. They were right.
This Sunday morning at 2 a.m., we’re all supposed to set our clocks back by one hour.
That’s probably not the bad thing Mom and Dad were worried about, but it is definitely a bad thing. Changing our clocks twice a year was sold as a way to save energy, but it doesn’t seem to make much difference. It is, however, bad for our health — leading to seasonal spikes in cardiac events and accidents. Not surprisingly most people hate it.
You may have seen articles explaining all of these pitfalls in great detail. And you may also see a more nuanced discussion about whether we should make daylight saving permanent (The House of Representatives has passed a bill and we’re waiting on the Senate to take it up.) I’m personally in favor of making standard time permanent but that’s just me. The important thing is stop this ridiculous changing of clocks.
But I hope this also gives us a chance to think more carefully about the function of government. Just because something is really important doesn’t always mean we need government to do it. The time changes are a great example.
Of course, it’s important that we all agree on the time of day. We’re social animals. All sorts of social events — football games, faculty meetings, whatever — work better when everyone shows up at the same time. We might not agree on when to meet — I like Sunday night games, you might prefer noon kickoffs — but we should all agree on what the time means. But do we need government to impose that standard? Do we need a law to tell us when it’s noon?
Yes and no.
In 1675 King Charles II established the Royal Observatory. In addition to being a great tourist attraction, they maintain a very precise clock that announces Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). Governments then get together to decide the boundaries for time zones that are set in relation to GMT. My time zone is GMT -6 (six hours behind Greenwich)…Oh wait, not this week! The UK changes their clocks one week before we do and so now they’re GMT -5 — yet another annoying complication from this genuinely dumb idea.
The strategy of the government setting time standards is terrific. Without GMT long distance navigation would have been much harder and we’d be living in a world that is much poorer and violent than the one we have today. Having the government set up time zones makes sense, too. When you show up in a new place, it’s good to know the local time.
But politicians can never leave well enough alone. Power may or may not corrupt but it leads to a nearly irresistible tendency to tinker. It’s the tinkering — not just doing the simple thing but piling on a bunch of other stuff — that causes the trouble.
Here’s another example that is more important than setting up standards for times: building regulation and zoning rules.
Of course, we need standards for the places we live. We want to make sure that the alleyways are big enough for trash trucks, that sanitary systems won’t back up and so forth. Maybe there’s even a case to be made for certain aesthetic standards — say, regulating building heights and prohibiting people from constructing moats around the house.
But these simple, common-sense building standards have morphed into a chaotic and costly set of rules. Builders lobby government for rules that keep out competition and homeowners lobby for rules that exclude “undesirables.” There have been dozens of solid academic studies on the relationship between zoning rules and housing prices and they all find the same thing: the more restrictive the rules, the more expensive it is to buy and build housing.
So, make sure to change the time on your microwave. But when you’re deciding what questions to ask the politicians who want your vote, don’t just ask them what they will do. Ask them what they won’t do.
Michael Davis is an economics professor at the Cox School of Business at SMU Dallas.