Identifying Perverse Incentives in Buyer Profiling on Online Trading Platforms

With advance machine learning and artificial intelligence models, the capability of online trading platforms to profile consumers to identify and understand their needs has substantially increased. In this study, we use an analytical model to study whether these platforms have an incentive to profile their customers as accurately as possible. We find that “payments-for-transactions” platforms (i.e., platforms that charge for transactions that occur on the platform) indeed have such incentives to accurately profile the customers. However, surprisingly, “payments-for-discoveries” platform (i.e., platforms that charge customers for discoveries) have a perverse incentive to deviate from accurate consumer profiling. Our study provides insights into underlying mechanisms that drive this perverse incentive and discuss circumstances that lead to such a perverse incentive.

Offsetting Risk in a Neoliberal Environment: The Link between Asset-Based Welfare and NIMBYism

Affordable housing policy in the developed world has been undergoing a systematic commodification for several decades, including a push for homeownership as the normalized tenure and a commodity unto itself. Scholars suggest this push for homeownership is part and parcel of a neoliberal asset-based welfare to supplement, or even outright replace, traditionally defined benefit pension schemes. These policies individualize risk and re-fashion individual citizens as long-term financial planners, navigating the uncertainty inherent in international financial markets and general financial management. Less deeply explored, however, are the perverse incentives this system creates for homeowners to protect their home “investment” by leveraging planning policies, zoning, and land-use restrictions to preserve the community status quo and lock in the value of their home. In a policy environment in which long-term financial risk is individualized and public social welfare and pension systems are relegated to the smallest number of individuals possible, this type of NIMBYism (Not in My Backyard) is rather rational behavior, even as it simultaneously staunches the supply of new housing and drives up prices for non-homeowners. As such, this analysis synthesizes the existing research to make a formal theoretical connection between the neoliberal push for commodified housing, asset-based welfare, and the intractable political problem of NIMBYism.

The Accidental Origins, Underappreciated Limits, and Enduring Promises of Platform Transparency Reporting about Information Operations

Intense public and regulatory pressure following revelations of Russian interference in the US 2016 election led social media platforms to develop new policies to demonstrate how they had addressed the troll-shaped blind spot in their content moderation practices. This moment also gave rise to new transparency regimes that endure to this day and have unique characteristics, notably: the release of regular public reports of enforcement measures; the provision of underlying data to external stakeholders and, sometimes, the public; and collaboration across industry and with government. Despite these positive features, platform policies and transparency regimes related to information operations remain poorly understood. Underappreciated ambiguities and inconsistencies in platforms’ work in this area create perverse incentives for enforcement and distort public understanding of information operations. Highlighting these weaknesses is important as platforms expand content moderation practices in ways that build on the methods used in this domain. As platforms expand these practices, they are not continuing to invest in their transparency regimes, and the early promise and momentum behind the creation of these pockets of transparency are being lost as public and regulatory focus turns to other areas of content moderation.

Easing Restrictions During Vaccine Scarcity. How Mitigation Measures Help Tackling Associated Moral and Behavioral Challenges

Background: When vaccines became first available during the Covid-19 pandemic, their demand significantly exceeded their supply. In consequence, the access to vaccines, initially, was distributed unequally. At the same time, governments started easing pandemic restrictions for vaccinated and recovered persons and restoring their freedoms since their risk of transmitting the virus is significantly reduced.Evidence: We show that restoring freedoms for vaccinated and recovered persons – while upholding restrictions for the rest of the population – is morally unfair during vaccine scarcity. Further, it may yield unintended side-effects, including perverse incentives, growing rifts in society, and the expansion of marginalization.Policy Options & Recommendations: We recommend accompanying easing for vaccinated and recovered individuals by mitigation measures for those who are neither vaccinated nor recovered. We propose, first, to temporarily lift the same restrictions for negative-tested individuals, as for vaccinated or recovered people. Second, the state must ensure broad and easy access to testing for everyone – free of charge.Conclusion: If done right, these mitigation measures create (at least temporarily) equal access to freedom for everybody – solving the moral problem of unfair access to freedoms and counteracting possible negative consequences.

The Effect of Incentives: Diffusion of Responsibility

Diffusion of responsibility refers to the problem that when something is everyone’s job, it in effect ends up being nobody’s job. This explains why many collective problems arise. People face perverse incentives to free ride on others’ actions and not to do their part. As a result, agents often think in short-term rather than long-term ways. Problems such as climate change can be modeled as instances of the tragedy of the commons, one form of a collective action problem that arises due to perverse incentives created by the diffusion of responsibility.

Conclusion: How to Run an Unethical Business

One way to illustrate how to manage a business or oneself for ethical performance is to teach the lesson in a negative form. How would one run a business if one wanted to induce others and oneself to act worse? One would want to create structures that impose perverse incentives, encourage moral blindness, promote moral confusion, create stress and tight deadlines which encourage employees to cut corners, make a mockery of ethics, push people to conform to others’ bad behavior, and reduce their willpower.

The Future of Essentially Derived Variety (EDV) Status: Predominantly More Explanations or Essential Change

This review examines the categorization of Essentially Derived Varieties (EDV) introduced in the 1991 revision of the Convention of the Union internationale pour la protection des obtentions végétales (UPOV). Other non-UPOV member countries (India, Malaysia, and Thailand) have also introduced the concept of essential derivation. China, a UPOV member operating under the 1978 Convention, is introducing EDVs via seed laws. Challenges in the implementation of the concept and progress made to provide greater clarity and more efficient implementation are reviewed, including in Australia and India. The current approach to EDV remains valid provided (i) clarity on thresholds can be achieved including through resource intensive research on an individual crop species basis and (ii) that threshold clarity does not lead to perverse incentives to avoid detection of essential derivation. However, technological advances that facilitate the simultaneous introduction or change in expression of more than “a few” genes may well fundamentally challenge the concept of essential derivation and require a revision of the Convention. Revision could include deletion of the concept of essential derivation coupled with changes to the breeder exception on a crop-by-crop basis. Stakeholders might also benefit from greater flexibility within a revised Convention. Consideration should be given to allowing members to choose if and when to introduce changes according to a revised Convention on a crop specific basis.

Nature-Based Climate Solutions Require Us to Answer the “Where” and the “Who”

The protection and restoration of nature are critical for climate change mitigation. As such, many international initiatives have been launched to champion the implementation of nature-based climate solutions (NBCS) while supporting other societal goals. Given global momentum, it is critical that policymakers proactively define successful NBCS activities to avoid perverse incentives and harmful land-use change. We argue that effective NBCS will support clear goals and make transparent the relative costs and benefits to climate, biodiversity, and human livelihood. To do this, NBCS must be designed based on the best geospatial science and implemented alongside empowered local communities. Specifically, NBCS should be accompanied by strong benefit-sharing mechanisms that involve procedural equity. Further, where changes in land management and land-use are required, land restoration should be accompanied by financial incentives that make such restoration profitable. Carbon markets could be expanded to include land-based carbon, and auction proceeds or tax revenues could be utilized to fund restoration on private land where landowners may be required to forego other profits over the short term. NBCS will help the global community advance important societal goals if policymakers can be specific about where national goals will be implemented and who will be empowered to make decisions about their design.

The Future of Essentially Derived Variety (EDV) Status: Predominantly More Explanations or Essential Change

This review examines the categorization of Essentially Derived Varieties (EDV) introduced in the 1991 revision of the Convention of the Union internationale pour la protection des obtentions végétales (UPOV). Challenges in the implementation of the concept and progress made on a crop-by-crop basis to provide greater clarity and more efficient implementation are reviewed. The current approach to EDV remains valid provided i) clarity on thresholds can be achieved including through resource intensive research on an individual crop species basis and ii) that threshold clarity does not lead to perverse incentives to avoid detection of essential derivation. However, technological advances leading to new varieties resulting from the simultaneous introduction or change in expression of more than “a few” genes will so challenge the concept to require a new Convention. Revision could include deletion of the concept of essential derivation and revision on a crop-by-crop basis of the breeder exception. Countries that allow utility patents for individual plant varieties per se should consider removing that possibility unless plant breeders utilize those encouragements for risk taking and investment to broaden the germplasm base upon which the long-term sustainability of plant breeding resides.

Dentists and dental technicians - A united team or uncomfortable alliance?

The effective practising of dentistry requires that dentists and dental technicians work hand in hand, having mutual respect for each other, while maintaining the highest standards in each of their respective disciplines. From a limited survey of dentists and dental technicians it seems that a small portion of our profession have misinterpreted the concept of “hand in hand” to be one of gross perverse incentives, corruption, collusion and dishonesty. This article may come as a shock to some and a revelation of what is known to be true to others. The issues discussed have generally been kept as “Dental family secrets”, however, the authors believe that these practices need to be uncovered if we want to put an end to this behaviour.