UW Economics Society presents our take on robbing banks.
University students in Quebec are crying foul over tuition hikes, so one (or more) of them may be tempted to rob a bank. In fact, you may also be tempted to rob a bank because as an economics student you know that bank bailouts resulted in a moral hazard problem for the big banks and want to get back. Easy money, it's just sitting there waiting to be taken, right? One bank heist will probably net enough to pay off tuition and have some left over for alcohol and we all know university students love alcohol. Facebook proves this point multiple times a day. What you and fellows of your persuasion would be overlooking would be this journal article published by dreaded economists.
Economics the dismal science strikes again! Ars Technica published an article about the returns on bank robberies and had some pretty jarring news. They estimate the expected value of each bank robbery to be half of what a minimum wage worker would make in a year. It simply isn't worth your time to rob a bank for half a year's minimum wage salary.
Three of my favourite facts include:
(1) an additional person nets you £9000 ($14000 CAD) more all else being equal,
(2) bringing a gun nets you £10000 ($16000 CAD) more all else being equal and
(3) one third of all robberies fail entirely.
For the full details click through, Economists demonstrate exactly why bank robbery is a bad idea.
