The power of social incentives

Now we all know that Singapore is supposed to be really good at this: shaming those who break the law. Hence "Corrective Work Orders" (CWO), which is, of course, a distant cousin of the loanshark's spray-painting the defaulter's name all over his HDB flat (æ¬ é'±è¿�é'±...).

But looks like the city of Chicago is onto it as well. In an attempt to crack down on the illegal sex trade:

The city has begun posting the names and photographs of alleged "johns" on the Police Department's Web site for all to see, including spouses, children, employers, friends and neighbors, Mayor Richard Daley announced Tuesday. (Chicago Tribune)

And they didn't learn it from us either. The inspiration is the work of the maverick economist Steven D. Levitt and his journalist friend Stephen J. Dubner in their book, Freaknomonics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (amazon):

The two run a blog (so who else is left without a blog nowadays) as well, on which you can read more about the Chicago PD's latest employment of the "social incentive", among other things.

The book, by the way, was quite a page turner. I bought it intending to read it on the way to Belgium, but ended up finishing most of it before I left. There's a chapter on whether real-estate agents really have their clients' best interest in mind; about school teachers cheating on their students' tests and how they were caught by a statistical demon of a computer program; match-fixing in sumo wrestling; how the KKK was brought down when their passwords were leaked; I like this one: if drug dealers make so much money, why do they still live with their moms; a rather unsavory one on how legalised abortion actually reduced the crime rate in the US; on whether good parenting actually makes a difference; and most amusingly, on whether the name given to a child makes a difference to his or her life prospects. It's not everyday that you discover that there actually are parents who name their kid "Shithead" (pronounced shuh-TEED).

update: (July 5, 0730 -0400) Not all economists are impressed:

For someone steeped in the social sciences, Freakonomics can be a fun and useful read. But if you read just one economics book this year, make it something else.

Fair enough--the book is not really about economics; once you get to "social incentives", you are definitely beyond the usual confined of the discipline. When I revised the subject earlier in the year, it was by reading Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy and Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One. Projected next pitstop: his Classical Economics Reconsidered, and finishing the whole of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations for once.