10. A Solution That Made a Problem Worse
During the British Raj, India’s colonial rulers grew alarmed by the large numbers of venomous cobra snakes infesting the city of Delhi. For a solution, the authorities came up with an incentive plan to eradicate the pests: a cash bounty for every dead cobra, payable upon delivery of its skin to designated officials. The plan seemed to be working great, and before long, natives were thronging to the drop-off points, whose storerooms were soon bulging with cobra skins.
Unfortunately, the incentive plan did not seem to have a noticeable effect on the city’s cobra population. No matter how many cobra skins were delivered to the authorities, Delhi seemed to be just as infested with the deadly snakes as it had ever been. City officials eventually figured out why: many locals had turned to farming cobras. Since the bounty on the snakeskin was greater than the cost of raising a cobra, the British had unintentionally created a new cash crop.
