Our latest Freakonomics Radio podcast is called “The Cobra Effect.” (Download/subscribe at iTunes, get the RSS feed, listen via the media player in the post, or read the transcript below.) The gist: when you want to get rid of a nasty pest, one obvious solution comes to mind: just offer a cash reward. But be careful -- because nothing backfires quite like a bounty.
This is a story-filled episode that looks at the unintended consequences of trying to control everything from traffic to rodent populations to dangerous gases. If you've been hanging around these parts for a while, you will have noticed a similar theme in our "Misadventures in Baby-Making" podcast or the section of the film Freakonomics wherein Steve Levitt tries to potty-train his daughter.
The episode begins with Vikas Mehrotra, a finance professor at the University of Alberta, who is visiting Bogota, Colombia, and notices a strange traffic pattern. (You may remember Mehrotra from our "Church of Scionology" episode.) If you want to do some further reading on the story Mehrotra tells, check out “Rationing Can Backfire: The ‘Day Without a Car’ in Mexico City” (abstract; PDF) and “The Effect of Driving Restrictions on Air Quality in Mexico City” (abstract; PDF).