Should rich people throw away their litter?
One of the problems we face in economics is that our theoretical solutions do not always work in the real world, because the key assumptions of liquid markets, no transaction costs etc often do not hold. In these cases, we have to spend time working out second-best solutions. But even the second-best may still hold surprises. Here's an example. Does it make sense for Bill Gates go to the trouble of disposing of his own litter? Let's say Bill drinks a can of Coke. As Andy Warhol said (h/t Russell Howard ): ...the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. So Bill drinks Coke just like the rest of us. He finishes it and needs to get rid of the can somehow. But, as it happens, he's spending the afternoon in Sixty Acre Park near Redmond, and the nearest trashcan is half a mile away (amusingly, the description starts with...