According to my wife, the marginal utility of beer is a tricky business.
One beer is great, two beers may be outstanding — but even if the beer was purchased on sale, by the case, that third and fourth and eighth beer may actually represent diminished marginal utility. What is the value of that eighth beer? Only the wife knows for sure.
Mark Twain, Hartford’s very own Samuel Clemens, told a story about being in the Swiss Alps, and tipping a kid a few cents for a decent, unsolicited yodeling exhibition — which, of course, prompted another kid and then another and then another to sell Twain a yodel as well. To the exasperated Twain, the value of the additional yodels eventually went down.
No one understands the importance of marginal utility, marginal cost, marginal value, better than top-tier American universities. While refusing to pay athletes a salary for services rendered, even at the highest, most lucrative levels of NCAA sports, the schools make a big deal out of awarding the slaves a scholarship. The dirty little secret? The marginal cost of adding one muscle-bound kid to a student body of thousands? Almost nothing.
Although it is rarely discussed, the debate over the death penalty often addresses an issue of marginal cost. Consider the hideous monster just convicted in the Cheshire home invasion case; and his partner in crime, convicted earlier.
If there were no death penalty in Connecticut, or, as is the case, Connecticut avoids actually executing anyone convicted of a capital crime, the marginal cost of the unspeakable goes down.
Kill the wife. Rape the wife. Kill the daughters. Set the room on fire. If, in fact, the “life sentence” will be triggered by the first death, and there is no fear; that is, no marginal cost to the continuing horror, the incentive to run amok is clear, in a demented sort of way.
The marginal value of the next dollar spent is particularly murky, when the very nature of the “value” is elusive. What is the value of the next dollar spent on public education, especially in a local school system? Well, what is the objective?
If, in fact, “no child” can be “left behind,” that scenario suggests that the entire national GDP should be spent on education — if that’s what it takes to achieve perfection.
If we settle on a middling performance for the local school system, then the marginal cost might be less frightening. But, the academic literature is littered with the murky success and spectacular failures of thousands of educational adventures, with little evidence that the next dollar spent achieved much of anything at all.
Ponder the peculiar circumstances in Connecticut, where 11 school districts have been ordered to spend more on education, because they failed to budget for the mandated “minimum.”
Notice that this is not necessarily a question of whether the marginal value of that extra dollar spent will achieve anything in particular.
In the business world, if one of those school systems squeaked through, “under budget,” with a healthy level of success, champagne corks and bonuses would be in evidence. Not so in the world of Connecticut education.
Many states, including Connecticut, have endured the mysteries of litigation to determine whether vague state constitutional or legislative provisions for “adequate” or “appropriate” or “free” education means that a certain number of dollars must be spent.
The marginal value of that next dollar spent? Nobody really knows. That’s the joy of it, if you’re on the receiving end of the money.
Laurence D. Cohen is a freelance writer.
