Posts Tagged: Policy

26
Jul

2011

How Do You Eliminate Bribery? Make It Legal – By Steven Dale

It’s summer and I’m catching up on my reading and one of the most intriguing things I’ve read in a long time is a working paper by Kaushik Basu, the Chief Economic Adviser to the Ministry of Finance of the Government of India.

As everyone knows, India has a severe problem with bribery. Basu’s ingenious idea to curb the problem is (get ready for it) to make bribe-giving legal.

Bribe-taking, however, would remain illegal. Such an arrangement, Basu argues, would sever the incentive towards collusion that characterizes the act of bribery. Based on lessons learned from the classic Prisoner’s Dilemma game, the incidence of bribery should drop dramatically.

Basu admits the plan is not without its flaws, but his insightful and creative logic should give all policy-makers pause for contemplation.

You should read it. It’s not short, but it’s easy-reading and well worth the effort.

Too often our policy is tied up in morality. What should be right and what should be wrong. The idea that bribery should be made legal goes against all common intuition.

But if we agree as a society that bribery is something that should not be tolerated (and I doubt there’s anyone who would disagree with that position), then the end goal should be about ending bribery no matter the policy imperative that gets us there.

Yes it is absurdly ironic to make bribery legal in order to eliminate bribery. But so what? If it works, who cares?

All policy should be so creative, insightful and problem-oriented.



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29
Jun

2011

Making Design and Policy Agree

Image by Kevin Jaako.

Consider the common airplane and it’s absurd carry-on baggage situation:

Airline policy (at least according to their safety videos) is for passengers to store their heavier carry-on luggage below the seat in front of them and the lighter articles in the overhead compartment.

This is, apparently, for your own safety.

But have you ever been able to successfully accomplish that feat?

Of course you haven’t. Why? Because overhead compartments on airplanes are designed to accommodate the size and girth of a typical piece of carry-on luggage and the space under the seat in front of you is designed to accommodate baggage not much larger than a purse or a briefcase.

And given the airline’s recent stinginess on checked baggage, frugal customers try and cram as much as humanly possible into their carry-on. Those large and heavy carry-ons inevitably find themselves crammed in the overhead compartment.

Policy is a blunt instrument – and totally ineffective if the policy and the industrial design meant to service it don’t agree.

Even better: Get rid of the policy entirely and design baggage compartments such that people will naturally and automatically store heavier articles under the seat in front of them.

Do that and the need to communicate a heavy baggage policy becomes utterly redundant.



Want more? Purchase Cable Car Confidential: The Essential Guide to Cable Cars, Urban Gondolas & Cable Propelled Transit and start learning about the world's fastest growing transportation technologies.