The authors wrote a book on property rights in everyday life, and how they differ from legal property rights. The example of airline seats is a case where, if you survey people, they give basically 50⁄50 answers about who “owns” the airspace in front of an airline seat, and therefore whether reclining the seat is appropriate.
Their belief is that it is actually in the airline’s interests for this to be ambiguous. This is because when paying for an airline seat, people naturally assume that they will have the right to both recline and the right to not have the person in front of them recline. The airline doesn’t want to mediate this conflict, because they want to continue to sell seats to people who optimistically believe they will have access to both. So the airline has no desire to give a clear pronouncement either way, because that will lower the perceived value of a seat.
I find myself wondering about the up votes here. Nice to have a link to the subject and econtalk should at least have some generally reasonable arguments being made. In this case, however, I am skeptical.
Does anyone really think the price of an airline ticket would change more and a $1 (and so not change at all) if that was clarified (thought I agree it’s a case of incomplete contract specification in the rental of the space)? What is the trade off here? Pass up the plane and not go where you planned to, or take alternative transportation that will add hours, days or even weeks to the time in travel?
I don’t buy the claim being made that the airline is some how maximizing the value (in a molochinan? way) of the seat here with that unspecified, or poorly specified (they do advertise that ability and mention the need to return the seat to its fully upright position for takeoff and landing), status of reclining the seat.
I would change my mind here if some investigative reporter or airline industry insider published some internal documents/communications stating that is why they don’t make more about when and where a seat can be reclined.
Based on the passion people show on twitter (main thread) maybe an airline that was explicitly anti-recline might drive away a few customers (or more likely get hate on twitter from a few people who weren’t customers anyway). Similar for pro-recline.
I suspect the answer is that, for most airlines, its more like no-one even knows whose job this is. eg. Cabin crew breaks up an argument, wonders if an airline policy is a good idea. They assume some person in head office might be thinking about this. Back in head office they all fly business class and are unaware of the issue entirely. Not only is no one thinking about it but the airline doesn’t even have channels of command/communication about who would decide that policy, or decide to have a meeting to pick a policy.
This is because when paying for an airline seat, people naturally assume that they will have the right to both recline and the right to not have the person in front of them recline.
There’s an assumption here (about the fact that people are making that natural assumption), but I don’t know where it comes or if there’s any evidence for it. It seems more like the type of thing you’d think of when making clever economic arguments for a podcast than a real assumption people would make.
There’s a wonderful Econtalk segment on this issue: https://www.econtalk.org/michael-heller-and-james-salzman-on-mine/
The authors wrote a book on property rights in everyday life, and how they differ from legal property rights. The example of airline seats is a case where, if you survey people, they give basically 50⁄50 answers about who “owns” the airspace in front of an airline seat, and therefore whether reclining the seat is appropriate.
Their belief is that it is actually in the airline’s interests for this to be ambiguous. This is because when paying for an airline seat, people naturally assume that they will have the right to both recline and the right to not have the person in front of them recline. The airline doesn’t want to mediate this conflict, because they want to continue to sell seats to people who optimistically believe they will have access to both. So the airline has no desire to give a clear pronouncement either way, because that will lower the perceived value of a seat.
I find myself wondering about the up votes here. Nice to have a link to the subject and econtalk should at least have some generally reasonable arguments being made. In this case, however, I am skeptical.
Does anyone really think the price of an airline ticket would change more and a $1 (and so not change at all) if that was clarified (thought I agree it’s a case of incomplete contract specification in the rental of the space)? What is the trade off here? Pass up the plane and not go where you planned to, or take alternative transportation that will add hours, days or even weeks to the time in travel?
I don’t buy the claim being made that the airline is some how maximizing the value (in a molochinan? way) of the seat here with that unspecified, or poorly specified (they do advertise that ability and mention the need to return the seat to its fully upright position for takeoff and landing), status of reclining the seat.
I would change my mind here if some investigative reporter or airline industry insider published some internal documents/communications stating that is why they don’t make more about when and where a seat can be reclined.
Based on the passion people show on twitter (main thread) maybe an airline that was explicitly anti-recline might drive away a few customers (or more likely get hate on twitter from a few people who weren’t customers anyway). Similar for pro-recline.
I suspect the answer is that, for most airlines, its more like no-one even knows whose job this is. eg. Cabin crew breaks up an argument, wonders if an airline policy is a good idea. They assume some person in head office might be thinking about this. Back in head office they all fly business class and are unaware of the issue entirely. Not only is no one thinking about it but the airline doesn’t even have channels of command/communication about who would decide that policy, or decide to have a meeting to pick a policy.
There’s an assumption here (about the fact that people are making that natural assumption), but I don’t know where it comes or if there’s any evidence for it. It seems more like the type of thing you’d think of when making clever economic arguments for a podcast than a real assumption people would make.