Tag Archives: incentives

On military bravery

All countries and armed groups emphasize the bravery of their soldiers for propaganda purposes. Such claims are made regardless of whether there is any actual valour. Going to a dangerous situation or even certain death is not necessarily courageous, in particular if there is no knowledge of the danger or no choice. Are sheep going into a slaughterhouse brave? They are calmly walking to certain death, after all. But usually this is not ascribed to courage, but to ignorance. Analogously, soldiers used in early tests of the physiological effects of radiation exposure who were marched through an area of a recent nuclear explosion are not considered brave. They did not know the cancer risk.

If there is no choice, which usually means there are only perilous choices, then putting oneself in danger is not usually accounted brave. Jumping out of a burning building offers a higher probability of survival, so people do it despite the substantial risk of falling to death. When a sufferer of a painful terminal disease chooses euthanasia, this early death is commonly not considered brave. Some cultures even believe suicide to be a sign of cowardice. If a military has a well organized system for catching deserters and administering the death penalty to them (and their family in some regimes), then a soldier charging enemy machineguns is merely maximizing his survival probability. The enemy might miss, the firing squad rarely does.

The greater the probability of victory for one’s own side, the less attractive desertion becomes, because being caught is more likely. This explains the propaganda emphasis on own victories and the punishment of “defeatist talk” in wartime. The greater the military advantage of a party in an armed conflict, the less bravery its soldiers need.

Genuine bravery exists, but it is rare. Evolution favours cowardly bullies who attack the weaker (prey) and run from the stronger (predators). People who face no compulsion to fight in a war and know the dangers, yet still join, are brave. Freedom fighters (insurgents from the other side’s viewpoint) against a dictator qualify. With the caveat that only joining the fight initially requires bravery – after that, losing would mean being tortured to death by the dictator, so continuing the war is the safer option. Similarly, volunteering for the military requires some bravery (the more the greater the likelihood of being sent into danger), but once military law applies, desertion is usually more dangerous than the duty.

Military courage is proved for those who start the war as a weaker side against a stronger, if a continuing peace is not a slow death. Peasant revolts were often driven by hunger, meaning the participants may have perceived the probability of death from starvation as higher than the probability of being killed by the aristocrats.

People who have never faced an informed choice between a safe and a dangerous option may be “latently brave”, in the sense that given such a choice, they may exhibit courage. They are not proved brave, however, until they have made the choice. There are likely to be some latently brave people in the world’s militaries and armed groups. Probably a greater percentage than among the general population.

There are some proven brave folks even in the militaries of powerful countries, but the proof requires knowingly choosing a dangerous option when there is no future punishment for cowardice. For example, when nobody would know of the choice.

A topical question is whether suicide terrorists and other fighting religious fanatics are brave. Their behaviour may be driven by the fear of punishment either in the afterlife or by their fellow fanatics. It may also be due to ignorance – believing in an afterlife is like believing that one cannot really die and thus the danger is not real. In both cases, no courage is required for choosing death.

The belief in the impossibility of dying may even be literal – W.E.B. Griffin had a story of a witch doctor convincing the fighters of his tribe that his magic had made them immune to bullets. Great was the fighters’ surprise later… Their charge with spears against guns was not due to bravery, however.

Publication delay provides incentives

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From submitting a paper to a journal until getting the first referee reports takes about six months in economics. It is very rare to get accepted on the first try. Most papers are rejected, and an immediate acceptance implies having submitted to too weak a journal. Waiting for the referee reports on the revision and second revision takes another six plus a few months. This seems unnecessary (reading a paper does not take six months) and inefficient (creates delay in disseminating research results), but is used for incentives.
Delay discourages frivolous submissions. It forces authors to evaluate their own work with some honesty. If the referee reports were immediate, then everyone would start at the top journal and work their way down through every venue of publication until getting accepted. This would create a large refereeing and editing burden. Delay is a cost for the authors, because simultaneous submissions to multiple journals are not allowed. Trying for high-ranking journals is a risk, because the author may not have anything to show at the next evaluation. This reduces submissions to top journals. It may be optimal to start at the middle of the ranking where the chances of acceptance are higher.
A similar incentive to submit to the correct quality level of journal can be created by imposing a submission fee, forbidding further submissions for a period of time if rejected or requiring the author to write referee reports on others’ papers. A submission fee should be distinguished from publication fees, which are used at fake journals. The submission fee is paid no matter whether the paper is accepted, therefore does not create the incentive for the journal to lower its standards and publish more papers.
The submission fee would impose different costs on authors in different financial circumstances. Some have research funds to pay the fee, some do not. Similarly, delay has a larger effect on people whose evaluation is coming sooner. Being banned from a journal for a given amount of time after a rejection is worse for a researcher working in a single field. Interdisciplinary folk have a wider variety of venues to publish in. Writing referee reports as a price of having one’s work evaluated may lead to sloppy reviewing. Any mechanism to induce self-selection has a cost. Yet self-selection is needed.

Insurance in research

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Most developed countries have programs to support research and encourage students to choose careers in it. This suggests scientists have a positive externality on the rest of their country that is not fully internalized in their income. Why not support research by paying the researchers its value, assuming the value can be measured? This would internalize the externality, leading to efficient effort provision.
A potential answer is different risk aversion of the organization supporting science and the scientists. If the institution is involved with many different projects, it is diversified and likely to be less risk averse than a researcher who only has a few projects. The arrangement optimal for both sides is then for the institution to offer insurance (at a cost). The researchers get paid a lower expected amount than the value of their work, but with a lower variance. Instead of the scientists taking loans to finance their work, becoming rich if the project succeeds and bankrupt if it fails, they avoid loans and get a fairly constant salary.
There is a tradeoff between incentives and insurance. If the salary does not depend on success, there is no incentive for effort, but perfect insurance. Having researchers take loans and get the full value of their work provides no insurance, but strong motivation. The compromise is that promotion and pay depend somewhat on research success, but not too much.

When to permit new construction

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In places with zoning laws (restrictions on what kind of buildings are allowed at a given address), there is often debate on whether to relax the restrictions. This would allow new construction or enlargement of existing buildings. The renters are generally in favour of more buildings, because the increased supply of housing lowers prices at a given demand. The landlords oppose construction, because it reduces the rents they can charge. These economic arguments are already part of the debate.

Much lobbying effort (that costs time and money and may create corruption) could be avoided if the market price of housing (rents or house transactions) was used directly in the regulations. New construction is allowed if the average rent is above a cutoff and denied below. Zoning laws may be a bad thing overall, but if they are to remain, they could be made more resistant to manipulation by basing restrictions on objective indicators, not lobbying.

The good incentives created by this require interest groups to put their money where their mouth is: if landlords want to prevent new construction, they should lower the rents they charge. Only with average rents low would building be blocked. Similarly, if tenants want more housing, they should pay the landlords more. They may of course decide to pool their money and found a property development firm instead.

Property developers want to get construction permits for themselves, but deny them to other property developers (their competition). The motivation to get a permit by fair means or foul is stronger when property prices are higher. In this case, the above reliance on the market price to regulate permits does not create good incentives. If new housing is allowed when prices are high, developers are motivated to form a cartel and raise the price. Permits reward high prices. A good price-based regulation of property development would require the opposite of the rental market mechanism – a low selling price of new housing should lead to more construction permits.