NEW YORK – Those who have the upside are not necessarily those who incur the downside. For example, bankers and corporate managers get bonuses for “performance,” but not reverse bonuses for negative performance, and they have an incentive to bury risks in the tails of the distribution – in other words, to delay blowups.
The ancients were fully aware of this incentive to hide risks, and implemented very simple but potent heuristics. About 3,800 years ago, the Code of Hammurabi specified that if a house collapses and causes the death of its owner, the house’s builder shall be put to death.
This simple tenet is at the origin of “an eye for an eye” and the Golden Rule in ethics (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”). But, beyond ethics, this was simply the best risk-management rule ever.
The ancients understood that the builder always knows more about the risks than the client, and can hide sources of fragility and improve his profitability by cutting corners. The foundation is the best place to hide risk. The builder can also fool the inspector; the person hiding risk has a large informational advantage over the one who has to find it.
Why do I believe that a certain class of people has an incentive to “look good” rather than “do good”? The reason is simply the absence of personal risk. And the problems and remedies are as follows:
First, consider policymakers and politicians. In a decentralized system – say, municipalities – these people are checked by a feeling of shame upon harming others with their mistakes. In a large centralized system, by contrast, the source of errors is not so visible, and a spreadsheet does not make one feel shame. This penalty, shame, in addition to other arguments, is a case for decentralization.
Second, we misunderstand corporate managers’ incentive structure. Contrary to public perception, corporate managers are not entrepreneurs. They are not what one could call agents of capitalism. Since 2000, in the United States, the stock market has lost – depending on how one measures it – up to $2 trillion for investors (compared to returns had they left their funds in cash or treasury bills).
So, one would be inclined to think that since managers’ pay is based on performance incentives, they would be incurring losses. Not at all: there is an asymmetry. Money-losing managers do not have negative compensation. There is a built-in optionality in the compensation of corporate managers that can be removed only by forcing them to eat some of the losses. Because of the embedded option, while shareholders have lost, managers have earned more than a half-trillion dollars for themselves.
Third, there is a problem with academic economists, quantitative modelers, and policy wonks. The reason why economic models do not fit reality is that economists have no disincentive, and are never penalized for their errors. So long as they please the editors of academic journals, their work is considered fine.
As a result, we use models such as portfolio theory and similar methods without the remotest empirical reason. The solution is to prevent economists from teaching practitioners. Again, this highlights the case for decentralization: a system in which policy is decided at a local level by smaller units – and thus is not in need of economists.
Fourth, predictions in socioeconomic domains do not work, but predictors are rarely harmed by their forecasts. Yet we know that people take more risks after they see a numerical prediction. The solution is to ask – and only take into account – what the predictor has done, or will do in the future.
I tell people what I have in my portfolio, not what I predict; that way, I will be the first to be harmed. It is not ethical to drag people into these exposures without incurring the risk of losses. In my book Antifragile, I tell people what I do, not what they should do, to the great irritation of the literary critics. I do so not for autobiographical reasons, but only because the other approach would not be ethical.
Finally, there are warmongers. To deal with them, the onetime consumer advocate and former US presidential candidate Ralph Nader has proposed that those who vote in favor of war should place themselves or a descendent into military service.
One can only hope that something will be done in 2013 to implement some skin in the game heuristics. A safe and just society demands nothing less.
This commentary was adapted from Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s most recent book Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder.
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G M
It is always a pleasure to see Mr Taleb's brilliant combination of ignorance and bias. In this case he is trying to resell to his rabid readers the basic ideas of information economics, as expressed through the 70s-80s, and rewarded with a BoS prize in 2001.
G M
He is basically blaming economics while stealing ideas from it... pathetic... make uo your own ideas at least!
Shane Beck
@GM- If the basic ideas of information economics are valid then does it matter if he is trying resell them? As for accusations of plagiarism- I'm sure that the book Antifragile, of which this is an excerpt, is appropriately referenced. Just what is your skin in the game? A financial trader perhaps? Or maybe an academic economist?
Waleed Addas
"So long as they please the editors of academic journals, their work is considered fine". I like this very much. That's why in the system of economy under Islamic precepts, one is careful not to make a sale if a defect is known bu the seller but not known by the buyer, i.e. "selling a lemon" is not allowed in Islam. Also gambling is prohibited as well. The system is pro-society and pro-individual rights protection. What baffles me is that still many policy-makers keep choosing policies (type-II errors) that they know will do more harm than good!! Have we not heard so many times before that the majority of humankind do not know the truth...(verse from Holy Quran).
Carlos Avendano @untiroalaire
BRILLIANT. Simply brilliant as usual Mr Taleb. And now that you've told us that the emperor is wearing no suit and he's just but an empty name-dropper... What next?
How do we break the collusion-like contract that exists in between policymakers, bankers and lawmen alike? Should we expect a dramatic black swan-type event will force them to bring more skin in the game? Or by knowing the rules ourselves, we should just take advantage of it and play it as a game of poker?
In fact, being this a rigged game as it is, we can certainly admit that the elites have a lot of skin in THEIR game. Hence, it all ends up being a collusive, back-scratching, risk-free, patronizing game. Nothing will change until someone/thing releases Schumpeter's Creative Destruction beast from the "politically incorrect" dungeons.
PROCYON MUKHERJEE
As an admirer of your all four books, Dr. Taleb, I cannot but still raise a random doubt that there is a difference between mathematical view of reality and what is actually attempted by entrepreneurs to achieve a stated objective. Steve Jobs work, or for that matter any successful entrepreneur’s work is replete with examples where the attempt has been made to ‘distort’ reality or what I call ‘bending’ reality to make an adjustment that unbalances the existing paradigm and creates a change to happen. No matter how mathematically sound our rational expectation could be these actions by the entrepreneurs could be quite different from it and that causes dramatic results to be ordained that models could not predict.
You might say, these examples are rare and therefore they are outliers to the general perception, but actually that is what differentiates success from failure. If this is taken out, the world would be sitting on a balancing act that would stall all changes to happen. This bit of mysterious unbalance should not be forsaken by the rigidity of rules that a well balanced approach would like to foster, where symmetry is traded at the cost of overall net gain for the society.
Procyon Mukherjee
Nathan Coppedge @nathancoppedge
Vertical transparency may still be an option with 'more skin in the game', just at a more complex level.
So I don't see the point of de-constituting the view that Taleb projects in his books.
The investor would like to know, but usually doesn't know, in both cases.
The entrepreneur does not benefit by forecasting of the ordinary variety in either case.
Carol Maczinsky
Which leads us back to a "Nuremberg Financial Crime Tribunal".