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September 24, 2012

Comments

Anonymous

But is increased productivity always a good thing? Increased productivity may

1) Reduce labour force size, thus creating unemployment
2) Enrich employers more than employees.

dBonar

Isn't piece work also a "market" solution?

It seems like what this really suggests is that "winner-take-all" mechanisms encourage cheating in some people, a result that shouldn't surprise anyone.

john problem

Nah - it wasn't competition in banking - it was greed for bigger bonuses.

Val U

Wondering if the proportion of people who cheated would be greater the more thoroughly market forces were accepted as best way. Might altruism be crowded out more if not nurtured by ideas around.

George Hallam

The market is...

never having to say 'sorry'.

Zorblog

All those behavioral economics experiments are fascinating (hey, there aren't so many experiments that can be conducted in economics), but conclusions are sometimes a bit stretched.
This one seems to suggest that competition create bad incentives. But this is a relative observation, compared to an artificial situation where people are paid to conduct a task. It is far from obvious that this is a relevant comparison point.

Besides, there is the dynamic question. Competition may well be less efficient (than planning or regulation) at performing a well-identified task in a given quantity at some point of time, but it usually proves far superior at adapting the task to evolving conditions. That's the whole point about free market against central planning.

That does not mean the experiment is not interesting, and that nothing should be done against those 19% who want to be the 1% and despise the 47%.

Jah Terry

RE: Zorblog "...compared to an artificial situation where people are paid to conduct a task".
Why do you think this scenario is more artificial than any other?
Competition clearly does sometimes create bad incentives and bad outcomes - long term and short term. The evidence that competition is always superior to planning is not compelling.

celine handbags

The evidence that competition is always superior to planning is not compelling.

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