QotD: Perverse incentives

I'm normally all in favor of taking advantage of market incentives, but things like this can backfire too. I recall reading a study about a nursery school that started fining parents for picking up their kids late. This actually led to more late pickups, because arriving late stopped being seen as discourteous to the people running the school, and instead was seen as a luxury parents could buy.

Julian Sanchez, "Have You Stopped Beating the Poor Yet?", Hit and Run, 2006-10-10