Question

Consider a household consisting of four college friends. The friends have made a commitment to live together for the next five years. Presently they live in Milwaukee where Abby will earn $200,000, Bonnie will earn $120,000, Cathy will earn $315,000, and Donna will earn $150,000 over the next five years. They have the option of moving to Miami. Moving to Miami would impose a one-time moving cost of $5,000 on each person. If they move to Miami, however, Abby will earn $180,000, Bonnie will earn $150,000, Cathy will earn $300,000, and Donna will earn $100,000 over the next five years. Moreover, each friend prefers to live in Miami over Milwaukee. In particular, Abby and Bonnie both value the quality of life in Miami versus Milwaukee over the next five years at $40,000 while Cathy and Donna place the value at $25,000 each. Should the household move to Miami or stay in Milwaukee? Is anyone a tiedmover or a tied stayer?

Answer 1

Answer:

• move
• none are tied

Explanation:

See the attached for a spreadsheet of the values given in the problem statement. We have simply added the salary to the value of the preference and subtracted the one-time moving expense.

The right-most column shows the net increase in value of moving to Miami for each of the householders. Bonnie achieves so much more value that her net value outweighs the rather significant hit in value that Donna experiences.

If the vote is by net value to the householders, they must vote to move. There are no householders that have a net zero change in value.

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Comment on democracy

A decision based on net value does not account for the rather significant cost to Donna. If the household values mental health and interpersonal relationships, the fact that one member suffers badly from the move should be enough to sway the decision against it.