Mole-o-nomics Redux

Last fall I wrote about my great economics experiment with the moles who have decided to make my back yard their home.  Not wanting to harm the innocent little critters, I bought a 'sonic-stick' that buzzes and vibrates and is supposed to make life less comfortable for them.  (I also refrained from the mole-o-nomics bit, but I have less shame now)

From an economics perspective it made sense: increase slightly the marginal cost of inhabiting my yard and the moles will chose a more peaceful life in my neighbor's ground.  And any good economist starts with good theory...

Alas, it was too good to be true (as I suspected - a good economic naturalist knows that if this were such a winning technology there would not be all of the poisons and traps still available on the store shelf).  But the moles goes away in the winter and I thought that perhaps if the annoying buzzing wasn't enough to make them move away, perhaps it was enough to keep them from coming back.  

Alas, no.  Witness my yard yesterday (pictured above).  To add insult to injury this new mole volcano is about two feet from the stick itself (visible in the picture above just above the volcano) - it is not even keeping them at a distance!  The only conclusion is that they could care less about the buzzing.

In a way it is a relief, the buzzing might not be annoying to them but it sure is to me!  Now I can have a peaceful summer in my backyard undisturbed by intermittent buzzing.  Of course, I also have to move on to more draconian measures of mole control.

As an aside, when the Leverage crew moved in to film a scene in my back yard, the sound guy came up to me and said "I am picking up some kind of barely audible buzzing, do you know what that could be?"   The mole stick strikes again...

Moles are not Rational

My experiment with the economics of moles has ended, predictably, badly.  By slightly raising the marginal cost of lining in my yard, I had hoped convince my subterranean friend by use of an annoying emitter of sound waves to seek out more pleasant pastures...like my neighbor's yard.  But alas, not only has my mole remained after three weeks of use, but he is quite happily continuing to dig within a few feet of the 'sonic spike' itself.  The picture above is not the best, but these are two new mole mounds with the solar panel of the 'sonic spike' visible at the edge of the grass.

Clearly my mole has not had an Econ 101 class and doesn't understand decisions at the margin.

But I have made a scientific breakthrough!  Moles are not rational creatures.

Addendum: When you post an entry, Blogger informs you of the having successfully posted on a separate page in which they embed a Google Ad clearly targeted by keywords from your post.  Ironically, the ad associated with this post was headlined" "SONIC MOLE CHASERS WORK" and clicking through takes you here.  You have been warned.

Economist's Notebook: The Economics of Moles

[I resisted the temptation to call it Mole-o-nomics, aren't you all proud of me?]

This summer a mole (I shall henceforth call him Morris, though in truth I know not its name nor gender) decided to make himself at home in my back yard.   At first I was okay with this development, feeling I could live in harmony with my subterranean little friend.  And at first, this symbiotic arrangement seemed to be working out just fine - a couple of mole mounds appeared, but only one in the grass and I tended to all of them easily.  But then old Morris started to expand his home at the expense of my yard that I had only just completely rehabilitated.  Not really being a good guest this Morris, thought I. And recently he has really gone into overdrive digging up my yard and making a general mess of my lawn.

So what to do?  Well. I went down to the local hardware store to look for mole traps but I quickly began to have serious misgivings as I looked at the description of the violence promised to Morris.  These traps are also difficult to set (requiring lots of digging and careful placement) in addition to their being quite horrific.  Inflicting such horrors on poor old Morris seemed to be cosmically quesitonable, after all Morris is simply being a mole.

But then the good salesperson introduced me to the 'sonic spike.'  This is a device that sends out sonic waves in the ground and claims that this will drive away moles.  My first instinct is that this type of application of technology never works and a quick check of the intertubes reveals less than satisfied customers.  Nevertheless, the manager of the hardware store was claimed to have personally used them successfully in my neighborhood so I figured it was worth a try.

Besides, this approach has economics on its side.   What I mean by this is that the principle of the sonic spike is to make life in my yard not unbearable but marginally less pleasant than other places.  In economics we know that economic decisions are made at the margin.  In other words, Morris doesn't think 'well the benefits of Emerson's yard outweigh the costs even with this annoying noise (which is probably true), so I'll stay.'  No, Morris, being subject to the same incentives that influence us superterranean beings, thinks 'hmmm...here are two yards seperated only by a fence, but one is just slightly more annoying so I think I'll go to the more peaceful one.'  So, assuming I am right about the response of moles to incentives, it'll work.  But even if it doesn't, it makes for a good economics experiment.

Now, you have by now seen the er...moral ambiguity associated with this plan.  My mole strategy has an external cost that will be born by my neighbors: I am not removing the mole, only hoping to get it to move next door.  This is an example of a classic externality problem: if a the total cost of an activitiy is not born by the actor, too much will be done.  I am a good self-interested rational agent, and since I don't have to pay the cost of my neighbors' mole problem, I do not figure it into my calculation of relevant costs and benefits, so I choose the spike.

However, a bigger problem arises if all the neighbors decide on the same mole strategy.  If we all plant sonic spikes, the old Morris will think that every yard is as good as the next and whatever made him choose mine will cause him to chose it again. 

So I am not convinced it is the solution to my problem (and there is the downside of little high-pitched hums that eminate from the spike about every 30 seconds), but it'll be interesting if it is, at least for now.  And it keeps me karmically safe in the interim.

Failing that I may go with what seems the next best route: stick a hose from the tailpipe of my car into the ground and gas old Morris to death.  My big quesiton here is how do you get the car to not stall out due to clogging the tailpipe - isn't this similar to the old banana in the tailpipe trick?