Saturday, January 24, 2009

1/22

In my study of law, I find the study of enforcement mechanisms very interesting. There are three levels of enforcement: first person, second person, and third person. There have been studies in law and economics that certain behaviors can change based on what kind of enforcement mechanism is in place. A few comments in class were made about the "creepy" aspects of online behavior and this made me think of what exists to enforce either the societal norms or legal norms online. For example, people do and say things online that they would never do or say directly to other people and the third party enforcement is not very established online. Therefore, the only enforcement is through the first person or relying on each individual to just decide what to do themselves. I don't really know where to go with this other than saying I think it would be interesting to study enforcement mechanisms and behavior online as compared to the studies that have already been done.

The second thought is that trust will become more important as technology allows more "trickery" against other players in the economy. I think that trust has always been important, but with very simple business transactions the possibility of tricking the other person is limited certain factors. For example, the simplest transaction trading one apple for one banana only requires that each party has quality fruit. There is not much more uncertainty. However, as the business transactions involve larger time components (buying stock) or greater level of complexity (buying a super computer), the parties need to have more trust between them in order to complete the business. In other words, as the amount of information increases in the world, the asymmetry of that information makes it much easier for people to commit fraud and then walk away. Therefore, trusting that the other party will not try to take advantage is the key to a continuing business relationship.

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