Good reads

Daniel Hamermesh and Joel Slemrod win the prize for best paper title of the week: "The Economics of Workaholism: We Should Not Have Worked on This Paper". They also win the prize for most creative argument for a progressive tax.



Hamermesh and Slemrod argue that workaholism is a type of addiction similar to alcoholism and smoking. It has harmful effects on the workaholic and people close to him or her: stress, divorce, mental effect on children, etc. Just as society may find it optimal to discourage other types of addictive behavior with "sin taxes", it may be optimal to discourage workaholism with a tax on work. They do some fancy econometrics using some big economic data sets (Retirement History Survey and Panel Study of Income Dynamics) and find that, consistent with conventional wisdom, workaholism is concentrated among affluent and highly educated people. Therefore a progressive tax is especially well-suited to curbing this destructive behavior.



I find that access to the internet and the invention of blogs have worked the same effect in my life. You don't need to tax me.



Hamermesh and Slemrod's paper also confirms the adage I've been trying to peddle for some years now: "Many people have done much good to society earning their first million dollars; nobody has done any good to society earning their second million dollars."