To paraphrase golfer Ben Hogan, if it seems obvious, you're probably wrong. That could be the mantra of the fashionable subject of behavioural economics - to an extent that is beginning to dismay some of its proponents as they venture further into this looking-glass world.
David McWilliams' Kilkenomics event, which kicks off today, cleverly combines economics of the behavioural sort with comedy, has just finished and the workings of the new science, if that be the right word, was much in the news.
Not only that, behaviours of a kind we might have hoped not to see again for a long time, such as inflationary public sector strikes, are rampant across the land. If there is a science to encourage positive behaviour it seems to be failing, at least in this country.
Applying the science is difficult. Last week, Professor Michelle Baddeley of University College London addressed an ESRI seminar on strategies, not just to nudge people into more rational behaviours, but also to run counter checks on the analysts and policymakers who decide what is rational behaviour.
Her talk included one dramatic, but simple experiment. Twenty people were shown a horizontal line and three vertical ones of different lengths, and asked which vertical line was the same length as the horizontal one.
The answer was obvious, but 19 of the participants were secretly part of the experiment and gave the same, wrong answer. Quite a few of the hapless lone guinea pigs then ignored the evidence of their eyes and went with the other 19.
The conclusion is obvious, isn't it? A large percentage of the population will go with the crowd and it is a waste of time presenting them with evidence. Many Irish politicians draw the same conclusion: there go the people, I am their leader, I must follow.
I don't think it is following the crowd to say that this tendency now seems worse than ever. There has been a surprising amount of public disquiet at the naked populism displayed in the creation of the Budget, especially by Fianna Fáil. The behaviour it is trying to encourage - vote for us - may not be the one they are actually creating.
Therein lies the difficulty. Experiments such as the line selection are nearly always subject to different interpretations. In this case, another economist pointed out that the guinea pig has to consider what are the odds that 19 people are wrong and that he or she is the only one who is right. The pressure to follow the consensus is strong.
There are obvious echoes here of the Irish lending bubble - as there are with all asset price bubbles.
Unlike the line experiment, even the most self-confident individual cannot be certain that their particular judgment is correct. No-one can know where asset prices will go over a particular timescale.
One phenomenon which, fortunately, has receded to some degree, is the belief that the herd is more likely to be correct - the "wisdom of crowds". One can find scientific evidence for that in experiments and analysis, but it proved deadly in financial markets.
It was typified by the Bush administration Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's comment, when industry bosses complained about the strength of the dollar: "What makes you think you know better than the market?"
Yet O'Neill himself revealed that when he complained to the White House about loose fiscal policies, vice-president Dick Cheney said: "Reagan showed deficits don't matter".
The tendency to base the future on the past, especially when it suits, is also strong, and also figured in the Irish experience.
By the same token, whistleblowers or dissenters nearly always get a hard time. There is a difference between, say, a Garda whistleblower who is making allegations which can be factually tested, and an analyst or regulator who says policy is misguided but can be proved right or wrong only with the passage of time.
Both, however, threaten powerful self-interests. In organisations such as the Garda, and not just the Garda, attempts will be made to hide the unpleasant facts. In the other case, as is well-attested in the bubble, dissenters were not just ignored until it became clear whether they were correct or not; often they were penalised and their careers damaged for daring to wobble the apple cart.
Some organisations are now going the other way - hiring whistleblowers to scrutinise their in-house policies. They include the Pentagon and the object is not to uncover wrongdoing - that's supposed to be the job of auditors - but to watch for undesirable behaviours such as groupthink, herding and trend-following. Prof Baddeley does something of the kind on a committee set up by the UK Department of the Environment and Rural Affairs.
Three years ago, the chair of last week's seminar, Dr Peter Lunn of the ESRI and Trinity College, ran a behavioural slide rule over Ireland's spectacular banking crash. He identified seven kinds of behaviour relevant to the case, and decided all of them were present among bankers, regulators, property developers and, indeed, analysts and commentators.
Our politicians are so opaque, and the system so secretive, that it is still difficult to know how they were behaving, what influenced the decisions they took on taxation and spending, or how they dealt with any contrarian views conveyed to them.
This information black hole remains troubling. Dr Lunn observed that how the bubble was understood would influence policy and politics for a long time. That also implies that the way it was understood might leave policy and politics largely unchanged.
After the carnage of 2010 that would have seemed a fairly remote possibility even in 2013, but it now looks very much as if it is the case.
How do we understand our recent behaviour? You may remember the trouble the Taoiseach got into for saying in Davos that we had all gone a bit mad.
In effect, he was forced to retract. It is not acceptable to say that this was a case of galloping herd instinct, of assuming the future would be like the past, and always choosing the more popular restaurant (another experiment).
No, the more acceptable narrative says this was a case of gigantic fraud, where decent, sensible folk were hoodwinked by bankers and foreign lenders, who by rights should be in jail.
Blaming others is of course a very common response, but if blame is spread too thinly we will not learn from the experience or be on the alert for such harmful behaviours in future.
However, this seems to be exactly what is happening.
This time there will be no financial crash or public finance collapse, such as that overseen by Brian Cowen - because there is no private credit and government borrowing is constrained by new rules and the size of existing debt - but the seeds of the next one are being sown.
It beggars belief but it is clear that, if these limitations did not exist, borrowing would again be growing faster than the economy.
In the short-term, without the balm of borrowing, the rush to right wrongs, real or imagined, will be financed by a transfer in resources between citizens, via taxation and higher prices, reduced public services and a further deterioration in public equipment and facilities.
We know from experience - or should know - that the herd behaviour so evident at present easily turns into another kind; a stampede in which the weakest always get trampled.
It beggars belief but it is clear that, if these limitations did not exist, borrowing would again be growing faster than the economy.
Indo Business
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