Comments on: Ticket Insurance http://roughtheory.org/2007/08/02/ticket-insurance/ Theory In The Rough Wed, 26 Oct 2011 14:20:06 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: N Pepperell http://roughtheory.org/2007/08/02/ticket-insurance/#comment-996 Sat, 04 Aug 2007 08:39:09 +0000 http://www.roughtheory.org/content/ticket-insurance/#comment-996 I had the same thoughts about the insurance sellers – since the premiums don’t seem to be tiny, relative to the cost of tickets, and since the existence of the insurance seems widely known, you’d think authorities would start tinkering with the ticket price or inspection regime – unless there’s an informal arrangement with the insurance sellers?

I hadn’t realised Australia had had, and then abolished, TV licences, although I’m familiar with the concept. The US has never had them – federalistically complicated, I suppose…

]]> By: Russ http://roughtheory.org/2007/08/02/ticket-insurance/#comment-995 Sat, 04 Aug 2007 05:44:13 +0000 http://www.roughtheory.org/content/ticket-insurance/#comment-995 Thanks for the pointer NP. It raises all sorts of weird efficiency issues. The insurance sellers are effectively ticket sellers, but at a lower price. At least in theory, the railway company/gov’t could either increase the incidence of fines, raise the level of the fine, or reduce the ticket price to eliminate the insurance sellers, and go back to a single ticketing system. According to this discussion, it has existed for some time, so the insurance business seems to be limited by geographical/funding constraints: a subset of commuters from sparse areas where finding the ticket-less is hard.

Funnily enough, I had an additional reminder of this post yesterday, since the boss at work was reminiscing on TV licensing fees. A system, that needless to say, we’ve since discarded. in favour of general taxation.

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