During the reign of Akbar, the most famous Mughal emperor in India’s history, many visitors traveled far and wide to witness ‘The Nine Gems’; the nine intellectually gifted courtiers that Akbar had hand-picked to run the different facets of his empire’s affairs. One such visitor decided to challenge the court one day and asked Akbar if anyone in his court could prove to him that everyone thinks alike. This visitor boasted himself to be a scholar of the human mind, and he had concluded that it was virtually impossible to have everyone think alike without direct instructions from an external force. Birbal, the most clever among the group, requested a day to prove the visitor wrong.
Birbal ordered the messengers of the court to announce to the people of the city that each household must send one person tonight with a pot of milk to pour into the dilapidated well that lay dormant in the royal garden.
As night fell, a long line of people stretched from the royal garden to the city square. Birbal forbade anyone to check on the citizens or the well in the garden and promised them they would all go see the well together the next morning.
The next morning, when the denizens of the court went with Birbal to check on the well, they were shocked to find it filled with water, not milk. Birbal, however, seemed pleased with the results and told the visitor that his challenge had been won.
This story, of course, is largely fictional, and it is not known if such a man as Birbal even existed in the form described above, but this little piece of Indian folklore highlights an important aspect of public services: there will always be those who coast on the contributions of others without directly contributing themselves.
In economics, this is called the ‘free-rider problem’ and describes a type of market failure that occurs when those who benefit from collective efforts don’t contribute their fair share. An example of this is the initiative to mitigate climate change on a global scale. Since the efforts of any one country to reduce its carbon emissions will affect all countries worldwide, it will always be in a country’s best interests to limit its efforts in hopes of free-riding to the finish line.
Think about the group projects we do in school. If you’re anything like me, these experiences have largely been negative, and it’s always due to the fundamental flaw with how grading is structured with such projects: Regardless of the amount of work you put in the team, everyone gets the same grade. This has been remedied in recent years, but the same point can be applied to public services. If you are required to pay a fare to keep the public bus system running, there will always be people who avoid paying the fare to get a free ride.
The problem with this is that if too many people don’t pay the fare, the bus system ceases to run due to a lack of funding. In those group projects, although one member didn’t do nearly enough work, they still got an A due to the efforts of everyone else.
In 2013, economist Yoko Ibuka, along with her associates, conducted a study where she observed the behavior of individuals exhibiting free-riding tendencies in vaccine acceptance. A computerized experimental game was designed in a group setting where the participants were allowed to interact with each other.
We found that as the proportion of vaccination among other group members increased, the likelihood of an individual choosing to get vaccinated in the following game round decreased, implying a free-riding motive in vaccination. This free-riding behavior was found regardless whether the influenza was severe or mild; the risk of infection was high or low; the cost of vaccine was high or low; and the participant played as an elderly or young person.
Ibuka, Yoko et al. “Free-riding behavior in vaccination decisions: an experimental study.” PloS one vol. 9,1 e87164. 24 Jan. 2014, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0087164
Since the most vital outcome of the vaccine was to reduce disease transmission, individuals were likely to conclude that if the majority of the people around them had already taken the vaccine, then they didn’t have to take it as well. Seven years later, we would see the results of this paper unfold on a global scale.
Coming back to our story, the citizens viewed pouring milk into the well as a waste of good resources. Perplexed by such a nonsensical instruction, each household opted to send a pot of water instead, since a little bit of water in the milk wouldn’t hurt. But everyone thought alike, and we were left with a well full of water, not milk.