The Economic Way of Thinking 13th Edition by David Prychitko, Peter Boettke, Paul Heyne

Exercise 21

According to an article on the abuse of statistics that appeared in The Economist (April 18, 1998), the government of Mexico City in the late 1970s, increased the capacity of the Viaducto , a four-lane expressway, by repainting the lines to make it six lanes wide: a 50 percent increase in capacity. But after this resulted in more fatal accidents, the government switched back to four lanes: a reduction in capacity of one-third, or 33 percent. Did the successive changes produce a net 17 percent increase in capacity, as the government allegedly claimed in a report on social progress? (If you're wondering what this has to do with economics, go on to question 22.)