What are examples of the opposite of perverse incentives?

post by JohnGreer · 2021-06-18T16:04:44.158Z · LW · GW · 3 comments

This is a question post.

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    6 antanaclasis
    3 Dagon
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3 comments

I think a lot about the importance of incentives. There are numerous historical examples of perverse incentives but what are some examples of times where people got the incentives right?

Answers

answer by antanaclasis · 2021-06-18T18:20:02.151Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I’d say a lot of domains have reasonably-aligned incentives a lot of the time, but that’s a boring non-answer. For a specific example, there’s the classic case of how whenever I go to the grocery store, I’m presented with a panoply of cheap, good quality foodstuffs available for me to purchase. The incentives along the chain from production -> store -> me are reasonably well-aligned.

comment by JohnGreer · 2021-06-23T19:33:18.821Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Yes, I agree that a grocery store is a great example. I suppose I'm looking for examples where people recognized a problem, changed the incentives, and then it fixed/improved things.

answer by Dagon · 2021-06-18T19:53:13.047Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax is likely a good example - if implemented well, the incentive effect scales precisely with remediating the harm caused.

comment by JohnGreer · 2021-06-23T19:34:57.711Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Yes, I think Pigovian taxes are really interesting and useful. I suppose then I'm looking for examples of privately implemented Pigovian taxes that fixed a problem successfully.

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comment by Measure · 2021-06-18T19:20:04.467Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Typo in the title.

Replies from: habryka4
comment by habryka (habryka4) · 2021-06-18T19:41:21.602Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I edited it

Replies from: JohnGreer
comment by JohnGreer · 2021-06-23T19:33:36.837Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Thanks