The Parked Economy 0
My local rag has an odd story about research by a local professor which seems to point to a correlation between whether persons “front-in” or “back-in” parking spaces and their economic behavior. A snippet:
He then looked at recent economic statistics, such as savings rate and growth in gross domestic product, and found that the more reverse parkers, the more economic success.
For example, of the six countries, China enjoyed the largest annual productivity increase from 2001 to 2011 – 17.8 percent. Virtually tied on the bottom were Brazil (1.3 percent) and the United States (1.5 percent). “Based on the way people park,” Li wrote, “we can gauge their economic performance.”
The link, Li said in an interview last week, is whether a society leans toward instant or delayed gratification. Rear-first parkers, he reasoned, are delayed-gratification types: They take more time to park so they can have a quicker getaway.
Note that he is not claiming causality, merely correlation.
Full Disclosure:
I usually back into parking spaces, but gratification of any sort has little to do with. It’s simple visibility.
If I get caught parked between two honking great SUVs, I’d much rather front out than back out.
