Intro to Social Science and Social Dilemmas Flashcards

Flashcards covering introductory social science frameworks, causal inference, strategic thinking, and common models of social dilemmas such as externalities and coordination problems.

Diagnosis

The phase of social science inquiry identifying what is causing the problem.

Prescription

The phase of social science inquiry determining what should be done about a problem.

Forecasting

Determining what will happen after a policy, including intended outcomes and potential adverse reactions.

Normative Frameworks

Tools used to clarify policy goals and tradeoffs by assessing whether a policy leads to a good outcome and is the right thing to do.

Utilitarianism

A normative framework that seeks to maximize aggregate welfare, assessing the 'rightness' of a policy based solely on its outcomes.

Hedonism

A type of utilitarianism focused on achieving more pleasure and less pain.

Welfarism

A type of utilitarianism focused on increasing total welfare.

Consequentialism

The practice of assessing the rightness of an action based on its consequences; the primary framework used in this course.

Deontologism

The opposite of utilitarianism; it bases the rightness of an action on moral norms or duties regardless of the outcome.

Kant’s Categorical Imperative

A moral rule stating that for an action to be moral, it must be able to be universalized without contradiction and humans must be treated as ends rather than tools.

Libertarianism

A normative framework where the self is the moral norm; Nozick argues the government should only prevent coercion, protect property, and enforce contracts.

Causal Effect

A change in outcomes that can be solely attributed to a specific intervention.

Fundamental Problem of Causal Inference

The fact that one cannot simultaneously observe the same unit under both treatment and control conditions and compare their outcomes.

The Counterfactual

What would have happened in the absence of a policy; used to overcome the fundamental problem of causal inference by predicting this state.

Selection Bias

Occurs when participation in a program is correlated with the outcome, which makes naive comparisons between users and non-users misleading.

Nash Equilibrium

A stable outcome in game theory where no player can improve their payoff by unilaterally changing their strategy.

Pareto Inefficient

A state where an alternative exists that makes at least one person better off without making anyone else worse off.

Pareto Efficient

A policy for which no other policy in the comparison set Pareto dominates it.

Social Dilemma

A situation where individually rational behavior leads to a Pareto inefficient (socially suboptimal) outcome.

Externality

A spillover effect from an action onto the welfare of others that is not factored into the payoff for the actor who generates it.

Negative Externalities

Spillover costs not internalized by the actor, leading to oversupply, such as pollution or overfishing.

Positive Externalities

Spillover benefits not internalized by the actor, leading to undersupply, such as vaccinations or asking good questions.

Strategic Complementarities

A situation where the benefit of an action increases when others also act, often generating multiple equilibria.

Pure Coordination Problem

A scenario where actors need the same action but have no preferred equilibrium (e.g., which side of the road to drive on); these are typically not social dilemmas.

Distributional Coordination Problem

A scenario where actors want to coordinate but prefer different equilibria; usually not social dilemmas because the resulting coordination is Pareto efficient.

Coordination Trap

A social dilemma where one equilibrium Pareto dominates another, yet actors remain stuck in the inefficient one because it is rational for each individual to stay if others do.

Commitment Problems

Arise when actors have incentives to renege on an agreement, such as a contract or peace treaty, after the fact.

Fundamental Problem of Exchange

A market failure where exchange does not emerge because buyers fear sellers will cheat them.

Hold-up Problem

A situation resulting in inefficiently low investment because one party fears the other will renegotiate once the investment is 'sunk'.

Principal-Agent Problems

Issues arising when a principal delegates an action to an agent, characterized by conflicting interests and asymmetric information.

Adverse Selection

A problem of asymmetric information occurring before a contract where the principal cannot observe the agent’s hidden 'type'.

Moral Hazard

A problem of asymmetric information occurring after a contract where the principal cannot observe the agent’s hidden 'actions'.

Strategic Adjustment

When actors change their behavior to maximize their own payoffs under a new policy, which often undermines the policy's goals.

Induced Demand

A strategic adjustment where expanding road capacity increases traffic because more people choose to drive once travel times improve.

Goodhart’s Law

The principle that 'When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.'

The Balloon Effect

A strategic adjustment where policing one drug route simply causes traffickers to shift their operations to another route.

The Cobra Effect

A perverse subsidy where an incentive causes the very problem it was meant to solve (e.g., farming rats to collect tails for bounties).

High Modernism

The belief that society can be scientifically studied and rationally engineered to improve the human condition, often ignoring local knowledge.

State-Sponsored Calamities

Disasters resulting from the combination of high modernism, administrative ordering of society, an unaccountable state, and a weakened civil society.