I took some time to study econs, and I got kinda addicted to economic analysis of merit goods and demerit goods. Recall that a possible measure that the government can take to maximise social welfare is FINE. As Singapore is a fine country, there are so many things you could analyse.

Take the MRT station for example. They have two signs to tell you not to go down the track. One says something to the effect of "Value life. Act responsibly." and the other sign says "DO NOT GO DOWN THE TRACK. FINE $5000."

Since it is possible to dare a person to "go down a track" for a sum of money, or to fine someone for "going down the track", "going down the track" could be considered as a tradable service, i.e, a good. Since the government is obviously actively discouraging people from going down the track, I could consider this as a demerit good. There are two things that the government can do to maximise social welfare: 1) Make sure that people are rationally consuming at MPC=MPB; 2) Make sure that the negative externality is considered by the individual in deciding whether to go down the track or not.

By the sign "Value life. Act responsibly.", this is a measure which the government takes so that their assumption of consumer rationality becomes a reasonable one, because if the public is completely clueless that going down the track could cost them their lives, then the government making the individual take the cost difference between the rational level of consumption and the MSC would still not lead to social efficiency. Thus, by putting up this educative slogan, the government is intervening in such a manner that the consumer does not suffer from imperfect information, and thus the assumption of consumer rationality is valid. [Insert graph here]

By the fine of $5000, the government is making sure that the individual takes the negative externalities of going down the track (such as dirtying the track with his intrails, loss of business due to temporary public fear of mrt) into account. Thus, with the fine, the individual would act in his own best interests and at the society's best interests at the same time.

However, I find that the slogan "Value life. Act responsibly." is still not educative enough. People are not not fully aware of the private consequences of going down the track. May I sugggest that they do it the same way as cigarettes. They felt that the health warning (Smoking causes stroke) is not adequate, and so they included a picture of the brain of a stroke victim. Maybe they can include the picture of a dirtied MRT track to further enhance the educativeness of the slogan.


Another demerit good to consider is suicide. If the government wishes to achieve social efficiency, he would want individuals to commit suicide at the amount where MSC=MSB. Since we can see that suicide is highly discouraged, it is a demerit good and thus we can infer that there is too much of suiciding going on. The government would want to lower the overall suicide rate to the number of suicides that would take place when MSC=MSB.

There are 3 approaches that the government can take.
1) Educate the individual to ensure that he/she really knows the private costs and benefits of suiciding
2) Make the individual take the negative externalities into account so that MPC=MSC=MSB=MPB (rationality and social efficiency)
3) Lower the MPB such that the amount consumed when MPB=MPC, MSB=MSC as well.

There is always the possibility of imperfect information. The suicider wouldn't know what it feels like to die, especially if that is his/her first attempt. Not to say that people who haven't succeeded would actually know, but they probably have a better idea. While the roaring sea might look tempting, that could be because the body's survival instinct chemicals haven't kicked in yet. While flying down a building may look cool, that could be because the combined effect of [andrenaline] + [the consideration that you would actually die] hasn't activated the chemicals to make you think "Hey, maybe dying isn't so nice afterall."

Thus, educating the potential suicider about how horrible dying is could help to shift the MPC graph that the person thinks he incurs closer to the MPC graph that he really incurs. This would most likely be an upward shift of the MPC.

Increasing MPC from an already very high amount to an even higher amount would be difficult. While the MSC would certainly exceed MPC, there is no more additional cost that individual can possibly incur. Any additional cost probably doesn't matter much to him anymore.

Lowering the MPB may be quite feasible. A rational person would commit suicide until MPC=MPB. Since a person can only commit suicide once, this means that if the person really wants to commit suicide (not indifferent to living or dying; actively prefers dying), his MPB would be even higher than MPC, which is already very high. So perhaps if a person who wishes to commit suicide so that he may go to heaven, a councellor could tell him that "Well, you probably wouldn't like heaven that much." or his pastor could tell him "Nah, if you do that you'll go to hell." or if he want to rejoin his dead relatives you could tell him "But don't you think your last uncle was a jerk?" Okay a tad insensitive, but you get the idea. Lower the MPB such that when MPB=MPC, MSC=MSB as well.

When all that is done, and people still commit suicide, well, there are two ways I can comment on the persistent suiciders. Using economics jargon, I could say that any additional or less unit of suiciding would lead to a lower social welfare than can possibly be attained. In layman terms, they are the only ones who should die, and their death makes the world a better place.