{"id":8218,"date":"2009-05-11T14:32:42","date_gmt":"2009-05-11T19:32:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=8218"},"modified":"2009-05-11T14:36:34","modified_gmt":"2009-05-11T19:36:34","slug":"optimal-tithing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2009\/05\/optimal-tithing\/","title":{"rendered":"Optimal Tithing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Suppose that we had a base 8 system instead of base 10, perhaps because, in this hypothetical world, we had 8 fingers rather than 10.  Would we pay 1\/8 our increase, or do you think it would still be <a href=\"http:\/\/scriptures.lds.org\/en\/dc\/119\/4#4\">one tenth<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>Or, to reverse causality, what are the chances we have ten fingers so that we&#8217;d develop a base 10 system that would make it easier to count out our tithing?<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Now suppose tithing were 12.5%, a 25% increase.  What fraction of current tithe payers would stop paying?  This would be the &#8220;price elasticity of tithing&#8221;.  What about if tithing were 20%?  What about 8%?  From a typical economic framework, one would say that God decided the fraction tithing we pay based on maximizing some outcome he desired &#8212; presumably salvation&#8211; and likely made it what it is because it optimally balanced some societal average of our willingness to sacrifice and the benefits from that\u00a0sacrifice.<\/p>\n<p>Bonus question:<\/p>\n<p>If a society&#8217;s income went up by 20%, would more people pay a full tithe, or fewer?  The change is called the &#8220;income elasticity of tithing&#8221;.  If full tithe paying rises, than tithing would be what is called a &#8220;luxury good&#8221; &#8212; you spend a higher fraction on it as income rises.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Suppose that we had a base 8 system instead of base 10, perhaps because, in this hypothetical world, we had 8 fingers rather than 10. Would we pay 1\/8 our increase, or do you think it would still be one tenth? Or, to reverse causality, what are the chances we have ten fingers so that we&#8217;d develop a base 10 system that would make it easier to count out our tithing?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-doctrine","category-social-sciences-and-economics"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8218"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8223,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8218\/revisions\/8223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}