A Ben and Jerry’s Tolling Analogy

Matthew Yglesias’s One Billion Americans is a wonderful book about fertility (what is increasingly called pro-natalism) and immigration. And it also contains a sharp passage on the economics of congestion and tolling.

He writes:

Once a year as a marketing stunt, Ben & Jerry’s stages a free ice-cream cone day when they literally give away free ice-cream cones at their stores. Ice cream is delicious, but if you go to get a cone, make sure to go with friends because the stunt invariably generates extremely long lines. As a once-a-year lark with some friends, standing in line for an hour to get ice cream is fun. But for most of us an hour of time is actually worth more than the modest price of a Ben & Jerry’s cone. If you’re actually hungry for ice cream—as opposed to looking for an afternoon activity—paying three or four bucks is a superior option to standing around waiting for a free cone. Everyone likes free stuff, but precisely because everyone likes free stuff, it leads to overcrowding.

The same is true for freeways. We all like to drive for free, but when stuck in traffic, most people, in the moment, if asked, would gladly pay a few dollars for the opportunity to drive 55 miles an hour rather than 5 mph. Given the presence of congestion, the monetary value of one’s time is often greater than the savings from not paying a toll.

Eric Shierman lives in Salem and is the author of We were winning when I was there.