You could certainly make a consistent argument along those lines. To the extent that waiters get consistent tips, this should lead to either one of two outcomes:
Their employers will pay them less, correctly reasoning that since their effective income is boosted from an external source, the employer can pay them a lower nominal wage and still attract the same quality of employees.
If 1. doesn’t happen for whatever reason (e.g. because they’re already at the minimum wage), this will effectively push the waiter job into a higher pay grade, leading to job gentrification (i.e. restaurants will hire more competent and expensive employees, and the people currently doing waiting will no longer be qualified for the job).
Tipping might make sense if you did it selectively—if you tipped people proportionally to the quality of the service they gave you personally, and made sure the tip doesn’t exceed the gains you got through the better-than-baseline waiting. That would motivate them to produce more positive-sum gains while waiting you, and actually make society better off. But the trick here is the selective rewards, not the tipping.
I’d predict that restaurants would start charging 15% more on all meals. Waiters would still get about the same amount. The only difference is that the money would be taken equally from generous and stingy people instead of coming disproportionately from the generous, and given equally to good and bad waiters instead of going disproportionately to the good.
I’d predict that restaurants would start charging 15% more on all meals. Waiters would still get about the same amount. The only difference is that the money would be taken equally from generous and stingy people instead of coming disproportionately from the generous, and given equally to good and bad waiters instead of going disproportionately to the good.
My impression is that this is true, that the US has “good” waiters, the kind that are get big tips, but that this has nothing to do with restaurant service. That varies geographically, but is uncorrelated with tipping and has a similar range in the US and Europe. I recommend the discussions on Marginal Revolution
I’ve never given the topic of tipping much thought before, so i don’t have a very good idea of what constitutes average tipping behavior. But i’d have assumed that the whole point of tipping is to reward good service.
Do you give the same amount to a good waiter as you give to a bad waiter?
You could certainly make a consistent argument along those lines. To the extent that waiters get consistent tips, this should lead to either one of two outcomes:
Their employers will pay them less, correctly reasoning that since their effective income is boosted from an external source, the employer can pay them a lower nominal wage and still attract the same quality of employees.
If 1. doesn’t happen for whatever reason (e.g. because they’re already at the minimum wage), this will effectively push the waiter job into a higher pay grade, leading to job gentrification (i.e. restaurants will hire more competent and expensive employees, and the people currently doing waiting will no longer be qualified for the job).
Tipping might make sense if you did it selectively—if you tipped people proportionally to the quality of the service they gave you personally, and made sure the tip doesn’t exceed the gains you got through the better-than-baseline waiting. That would motivate them to produce more positive-sum gains while waiting you, and actually make society better off. But the trick here is the selective rewards, not the tipping.
I’d predict that restaurants would start charging 15% more on all meals. Waiters would still get about the same amount. The only difference is that the money would be taken equally from generous and stingy people instead of coming disproportionately from the generous, and given equally to good and bad waiters instead of going disproportionately to the good.
My impression is that this is true, that the US has “good” waiters, the kind that are get big tips, but that this has nothing to do with restaurant service. That varies geographically, but is uncorrelated with tipping and has a similar range in the US and Europe. I recommend the discussions on Marginal Revolution
… and risk of low turnover would be taken by rich restaurant owners, not by below minimum wage staff.
I’ve never given the topic of tipping much thought before, so i don’t have a very good idea of what constitutes average tipping behavior. But i’d have assumed that the whole point of tipping is to reward good service. Do you give the same amount to a good waiter as you give to a bad waiter?