When we think of “public goods,” we often think of such things as roads, water works, and other public projects. But perhaps the most important public good are clean, non-fraudulent elections, since the legitimacy of our political system depends in large part on the integrity of the method in which our representatives are elected.

On this note, Angel Gonzalez Roman, the Dean at the Law School of the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico, where prior probability used to teach (1998 to 2009), has just been confirmed as the new Chairman of the Puerto Rico State Elections Commission (or Comision Estatal de Elecciones, as it is known on the Island). In our view, he is now the most important public official in Puerto Rico, since the P.R. State Elections Commission is responsible for the integrity and fairness of the electoral process in Puerto Rico and it has thus far done an excellent job of maintaining clean and free elections on the Island. Although Puerto Rico has many social problems, including a high crime rate and abysmal public education system, in the spirit of Albert O. Hirschman, we wish to emphasize the positive in this post: the fact that Puerto Rico has had free and fair elections with minimal levels of fraud for several decades, a scarce public good in most developing countries …