Incentives Quotations | Page 3

There is no reason to believe that bureaucrats and politicians, no matter how well meaning, are better at solving problems than the people on the spot, who have the strongest incentive to get the solution right.

Don't reward bad behavior. It is one of the first rules of parenting. During the financial cataclysm of 2008, we said it differently. When we bailed out banks that had created their own misfortune, we called it a 'moral hazard,' because the bailout absolved the bank's bad acts and created an incentive for it to make the same bad loans again.

OPEC has made sure there's no shortage of crude oil and the world refining system has responded to the (profit margin) incentives that the hurricanes have provided, plus demand is a bit lower year-on-year.

People are going to run as hard as they can. The price incentives are there.

Physicians today, as human beings, are not exempt from the perverse economic pressures created by fee-for-service regimes to see more patients for shorter appointments and order more tests and procedures. If the incentives were changed to pay to foster better health outcomes, I am convinced physician behavior would change over time.

The system that enables the most people to earn the most success is free enterprise, by matching up people's skills, interests, and abilities. In contrast, redistribution simply spreads money around. Even worse, it attenuates the ability to earn success by perverting economic incentives.

Positive market incentives operating in the public interest are too few and far between, and are also up against a seemingly never-ending expansion of perverse incentives and lobbying.

Overcoming employer resistance to hiring long-term IB claimants may require greater use of direct financial incentives to employers, such as the offer of recruitment subsidies or low cost work trials for claimants.

We aren't looking at why one guy got $200,000 and another guy got $300,000. We want to understand how audit partners are compensated, what the incentive is that drives their behavior, and whether they are being given incentives on the quality of the work they do, rather than just on, for example, the amount of new business they bring in. We want to figure out how to build this into a standard where compensation becomes an important factor in motivating audit partners to do the right thing.

People who earn reasonable amounts are being turned into the anti-Christ. I think 45 per cent tax is a colossal amount to take off somebody, and it is taking away the incentive to earn.