Glamor Economics

Chapter 139

Chapter 18 What to Use to Ensure Efficiency and Fairness—Institutions and Norms
Section 1 Avoiding the “Lazy” Logic of Collective Actions——Selective Incentives

Boss: "Others pick bricks for 80 yuan each time, but you only pick 40 yuan each time. Why?"

Dude: "They are lazy and don't want to make an extra trip."

If every guy thinks this way, it is estimated that the job of picking bricks will not be completed in a while.We found that when the number of people in a group is small, collective action is easier to produce, and as the number of people in the group increases, it becomes more and more difficult to produce collective action. This is like the story of the three monks.

Once upon a time there was a mountain, and there was a temple on the mountain. In the temple, there was a bucket and a pole.One day, a monk came to the temple. The monk wanted to drink water, so he went down the mountain with a bucket and a pole to fetch water to drink.Soon another monk came to the temple. The two monks wanted to drink water, so they used buckets and poles to carry water down the mountain to drink.Later, another monk came to the temple. The monk wanted to drink water, but there was a problem. A pole has only two ends. One monk can carry water to drink, and two monks can carry water to drink. Three monks don’t know what to do. .As a result, the bucket and pole were thrown aside, and the three monks died of thirst.

Why did the three monks have no water to drink?
Social scientists often assume that a group with a common interest will definitely take collective action to realize this common interest.For example, neighbors who live in the same building will provide lighting for public passages; people in the same community will maintain public sanitation; Merchants who sell counterfeit products struggle; citizens of the same country support the strength of their currency; the list goes on and on.

Economist Mansell?After a series of research on collective behavior, Olson found that this plausible assumption cannot explain and predict the results of collective actions well, and many collective actions that are in line with collective interests have not occurred.On the contrary, the spontaneous self-interested behavior of individuals often leads to the disadvantage of the collective, and even produces extremely harmful results.

Analyzing from an economic point of view, in a large collective with a large number of people, it is not easy to resolve how to share the cost of collective action through negotiation.The larger the number of people, the lower the per capita income, the stronger the incentive to hitchhike, and the harder it is to detect the hitchhiking behavior.This seems to be consistent with people's experience.One monk carries water to drink, two monks carry water to drink, this is the success of collective action; three monks have no water to drink, this is the failure of collective action.From two to three, the key to turning success into failure is the increase in collective numbers.So Olson came to a very controversial conclusion: Rational, self-interested individuals generally do not contribute to the collective interests, and the realization of collective action is actually not easy.

In response to the above problems, Olson proposed the concept of "selective incentives".He believes that the behavior of group members is directly linked to the benefits they receive.Generally speaking, the greater the benefit a certain member gets from collective action than other members, the more motivated he is to contribute to collective action. Usually, monks who drink a lot of water will take the initiative to carry more water.

Therefore, collective members can be stimulated to contribute to covering collective costs by attaching other benefits.For example, monks who carry a lot of water can drink more water.

Olson's research on collective action aroused people's attention to this issue. People applied Olson's theory to various fields of social science, and more scholars further explored the logic of collective action and established more refined behavior models.

The emergence of selective incentives is based on the status quo of society and the conclusions drawn from the research on collective behavior.Economists have found that there are some altruists in societies of different cultures, but these people who "have no self-interest but specialize in altruism" are rare after all.The model analogy results show that if there are 3% altruists in a group or society, the atmosphere and behavioral norms of the whole society will undergo welcome changes.

Experimental economists have designed many decision-making experiments to spy on human behavior.Many studies of this type have found that between 40% and 67% of people fall into the category of "return good for good and bad for bad".Such people are called "norm users".In addition, about 20% to 30% of people are selfish people. This kind of people is the kind of people assumed by Olson's model. No matter how others treat them well, these people will not reciprocate.Such people are called "rational egoists."

It can be seen that there are indeed very few people in society who "have no self-interest, but only benefit others".As a result, the tragedy of the three monks having no water to eat continued to be repeated in collective behavior.

[links to related words]

Collective action is a common theme in the research of social psychology, economic sociology, political economy (especially the school of public choice) and public management. category discussion.

Group behavior in social psychology (Le Bon, 1895), social movement category in sociology (Smerser, 1962; Tilly, 2004), institutional change in new institutional economics (Douglas? Lino Ostrom, 1981), and the supply of public goods (or collective goods) in public management (Olson, 1993; Eleanor Ostrom, 1966) and other related group interests or common The pursuit of interests all belong to the category of collective action.

Compulsory incentives and selective incentives Compulsory incentives and "selective incentives" organizational strategies, the former refers to relying on a centralized method to force group members to participate in collective actions, while the latter refers to the combination of positive rewards and negative punishments, Reward members who participate in collective action and punish nonparticipants.

(End of this chapter)