Levitt Incentives

School teachers, sumo wrestlers, and life are tied together by one aspect, incentives. Incentives are the driving reason behind doing things, much like motivation. Incentives drive people to get what they want/need, even more so when others want/need the same, which sometimes involving finding loopholes. The author starts with the daycare example. For just a $3 fine, parents could not have the guilt of picking up their child late. The (negative) incentive was not high enough, considering more parents were late than when there was no fine. Levitt goes through three types of incentives: economic, moral, and social. For example, people don't freely commit crimes, because there are economic (negative) incentives, like going to jail, fines, or not

This offers the reason for teachers to cheat and either “teach to the test”, or simply change their students answers to the correct ones. Facts show that there was cheating in over 200 classrooms per year. The incentives of a pay raise or promotion, drove teachers to think it was worth cheating. Cheating is also seen in athletic games, like Sumo wrestling. The incentives in this sport are extremely strong, since how good they are effects their income, and even how much he eats and sleeps. The incentives of this sport, are sometimes caused by a bribe, social incentive, or agree another wrestler to let them win. Their standings are based on their performance in a set of tournaments. For a sumo wrestler’s ranking to rise he much have 8 wins or higher, otherwise, he will fall in ranking. Often to keep from falling in rank, there are agreements between wrestlers with 8 wins and 7 wins. Since the one wrestler with 8 wins will not rank down given a loss, often he will let the wrestler with 7 wins get to 8 so he can rank up. When looking at the statistics behind this, it is seen that almost 80% of sumo’s with a 7-7 record will beat a wrestler with an 8-6 record, when the stakes are