John Cochrane: commitment

Transcript context

…The private rules associated with gliding — are they Coasian and wealth maximizing? Or are they all screwed up? [laughs] I served for a while on the rules committee that sets the rules for gliding competitions, which was a wonderful experience as far as me understanding political economy and just what’s wrong with Congress. I had all sorts of wonderful ideas on the scale of health-status insurance and my proposal to reform the issuance of treasury bonds that went exactly as far in the rules committee as my proposals have gone in Washington. It’s interesting. Eventually, reason prevails. Many of the psychological biases you see in many sports are there — the denial. I was a safety advocate, so I had some rules in mind that wouldn’t hurt the competition, but would do a lot to increase the safety of this thing. All the same things that . . . Bicycle racers said, “Oh, we can’t have helmets. We won’t be able to see.” Glider pilots have the same response to any rules that make things a little bit safer. It was a great education. There’s finance economist John Cochrane, policy economist and blogger and reformer John Cochrane, and glider and gliding reformer John Cochrane. How do they all fit together? How many dimensions are needed to explain the whole John Cochrane here?…

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