Clifton Sara M, Herbers Eileen, Chen Jack, Abrams Daniel M
Department of Mathematics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.
Department of Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA.
Chaos. 2018 Feb;28(2):023109. doi: 10.1063/1.5004711.
The custom of voluntarily tipping for services rendered has gone in and out of fashion in America since its introduction in the 19th century. Restaurant owners that ban tipping in their establishments often claim that social justice drives their decisions, but we show that rational profit-maximization may also justify the decisions. Here, we propose a conceptual model of restaurant competition for staff and customers, and we show that there exists a critical conventional tip rate at which restaurant owners should eliminate tipping to maximize profits. Because the conventional tip rate has been increasing steadily for the last several decades, our model suggests that restaurant owners may abandon tipping en masse when that critical tip rate is reached.
自19世纪引入以来，为所提供服务自愿付小费的习俗在美国时兴时衰。在其餐厅禁止付小费的餐馆老板们常常声称，社会正义推动了他们的决定，但我们表明，理性的利润最大化也可能为这些决定提供正当理由。在此，我们提出了一个餐馆争夺员工和顾客的概念模型，并且我们表明，存在一个关键的传统小费费率，在这个费率下餐馆老板应该取消小费以实现利润最大化。由于在过去几十年里传统小费费率一直在稳步上升，我们的模型表明，当达到那个关键小费费率时，餐馆老板们可能会集体放弃付小费的做法。
